For the next 50 days, this link will let you access our new paper, which shows that #skyglow affects bird behavior: https://tinyurl.com/skyglow-nightjar

Download a copy before the link expires! #LightPollution

"Our study shows that in the absence of direct light pollution, anthropogenic changes in sky brightness relieve nightjars from visual constraints on being active. Individuals adapt daily activities to artificial night-sky brightness, allowing them more time to fly than conspecifics living under natural light cycles. This modification of the nocturnal timescape likely affects behavioural processes of most crepuscular and nocturnal species."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969723043838

#ALAN #Skyglow #Birds #Biology

Here's a REALLY IMPORTANT new #LightPollution paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969723043838

#Nightjars are birds that typically fly during twilight and full moon. Ruben Evens shows that Nightjars have an opposite response to clouds in Mongolia compared to Belgium. This is evidence that #skyglow changes animal behavior!

In this new paper with my colleagues Miro Kocifaj and František Kundracik (Comenius University, Slovakia), we demonstrate a method for estimating the aerosol optical depth and asymmetry parameter for #skyglow modeling on any given night using images of the daytime sky.

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad1570/7179414

#LightPollution

Globe at Night's February light-pollution campaign has started. If you can spare 20minutes, please go outside, do some stargazing and then complete their study (https://www.globeatnight.org/)

If you haven't the time to wait for your eyes to dark-adapt (or it's really old where you are!), please consider downloading the Dark Sky Meter app and doing a quick-and-dirty DSM observation (https://mastodon.cloud/@richh/109778063360790458)

#lightpollution #skyglow #science #citizenscience #nature #astronomy

Who would have thought advertising would cause pollution? #skyglow #pollution #sustainability

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/01/20/stars-are-becoming-invisible-to-the-human-eye-at-an-alarming-rate-scientists-warn

Lichtverschmutzung verschlimmert sich deutlich schneller als angenommen

Etwa alle acht Jahre verdoppelt sich die Helligkeit des Nachthimmels in aller Welt. Damit ist die Lichtverschmutzung noch gravierender als bislang gedacht.

https://www.heise.de/news/Lichtverschmmutzung-verschlimmert-sich-deutlich-schneller-als-angenommen-7464969.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege

#Astronomie #Biologie #CitizenScience #Kultur #Lichtverschmutzung #Milchstraße #Mond #Mythen #Skyglow #Sonne #Sternbeobachtung #Sternenfreunde #Sternenhimmel #Sterngucker #Ökosysteme

Looking at images of the Earth at night, people generally are struck by the 'beauty' of city lights, as if they were lights on a Christmas tree, but they actually show pollution and wasted energy.

It is like admiring the beauty of the rainbow colors that gasoline produces in water and not recognizing that it is chemical pollution.

It does not need to be this way. If you light more carefully, you should be able to reduce #skyglow, whilst still lighting the ground.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64321824

"In this work, we propose a specification structure for light sources with nonstandard chromaticities to increase the precision of language used in the architectural #lighting industry and demonstrate that light sources with well-defined chromaticity ranges outside of the ANSI C78.377–2017 quadrangles may be useful for reducing the portion of relative #skyglow related to light source spectral power distribution."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15502724.2022.2121285