11 ms·
You Can See the Milky Way
- ChrisGranger 12y agoLiving in the city, light pollution drives me a little bit crazy. I don't understand why so many people seem to be OK with losing our ability to see the stars... It also implies squandered electricity (and money).
- mlrtime 12y agoWhen living in the city, you get to see other stars. I mean that more figuratively than Hollywood stars. Look upon NYC at night time from a tall building, it looks much like looking at another galaxy. I could stare at the city for hours.
- daliusd 12y agoThat implies increased security as well.
- sp332 12y agoShooting large amounts of light into the sky does not improve security. Adequate street lighting does not require that much wasted light.
- daliusd 12y agoI guess it is good that my city is aiming for 100% LED street lighting then :)
- sp332 12y agoNope, that just means they can waste light while wasting less electricity :)
- taylorwc 12y agoIf you're purchasing outdoor area or street LED lighting from any reputable OEM, they will comply with Dark Sky-friendly BUG (Backlight/Uplight/Glare) ratings.
- meepmorp 12y agoUnless they're aiming that 100% LED street lighting where it won't wind up in the sky, I don't see how that'd make a difference. And street lighting isn't the sole source of light pollution - in many cities, buildings are lit from the outside at night with big floodlights pointing upwards. I'd imagine that has a fairly big effect on light pollution.
- reportingsjr 12y agoFwiw many cities are switching to fully shielded led street lights. They started doing this where I live (Cincinnati) and the change has been fairly drastic.
- mhb 12y agoNot according to: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/20/the-dark-side-2 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/20/the-dark-side-2 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687358)
- tluyben2 12y agoI grew up in a very small town and I used to sit very long periods under the stars doing nothing. It was kind of meditation. I moved to the city when I went to uni and started missing it more and more; you hardly could see anything there and it didn't give me the same rest sitting outside. A while ago I looked for a new place to live after the city and I picked that place specifically based on viewing stars as one of the highest priorities on my list. I live in a village deep in the mountains; there is no light in the village at night, there are no cities nearby and the rest is shielded by the mountains. If you have never seen something like this you definitely are missing something worthwhile and yes, I can see the milky way, almost every night.
- thebiglebrewski 12y agoDude where do you live? That sounds amazing!
- metabeard 12y agoI created an account for the first time to ask the same question. Please share. This sounds wonderful. PS I also have only lived in LA and NYC.
- tluyben2 12y agoThis is in the mountains in the south of Spain. The village I live in has 40 people and they kill the streetlights after 11 pm and the nearest 'big' village has 200 people and they kill almost all the lights as well but I cannot see that anyway even if there would be enough light.
- thebiglebrewski 12y agoThat sounds so awesome. Name of the village perhaps?
- rprospero 12y ago> I don't understand why so many people seem to be OK with losing our ability to see the stars Honest question: why shouldn't they be okay with it? I was a Boy Scout and I saw the stars at night during camp outs. I've seen the night's sky from the middle of the New Mexico desert. It was very pretty, but I've seen it. It's not that I don't have a sense of wonder. Heck, I'm a post-doctoral researcher in physics and I've been trying to teach myself cosmology as a hobby. Yet, from my perspective, being able to see the stars every night like being able to see Niagara Falls every night. It's something that you should certainly do once and I don't begrudge those who want it part of their daily life, but I don't think that it needs to be the default option. You seem to disagree, so I'm wondering what it is that I'm missing.
- cgriswald 12y agoWell, seeing the stars everywhere at night is the default and our activities are preventing it. So I don't think it's quite the same as seeing Niagara Falls. Light pollution is a solved problem and solving it has other potential benefits (like better sleep at night). But no one cares. Why don't they care? I don't know. For me, the inability to see the stars at night is like not being able to see the sun during the day. It's like every night is cloudy.
- ChrisGranger 12y agoWell, not everyone is going to have the same level of awe or interest for any given phenomenon, obviously. It just strikes me as kind of sad that so many people today live their lives without even realizing what'd be visible directly overhead if only it wasn't so obscured by light pollution. At least you do realize, and have seen it. I think it's unfair to kids in particular that they're missing out on this. (I realize there are worse "accident of birth" things to worry about, like safety and shelter and having enough to eat, but I'm trying to stay on-topic.) I don't know... not being able to see the stars strikes me as one or two steps away from living underground, or never looking up.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoBecause Niagara Falls is thousands of miles away, fixed in size and in one place. The sky is everywhere and infinite. That we can't see the sky is a far more singular deal.
- HCIdivision17 12y agoWhen I stayed with my mom for a week in NYC, I was shocked by how bright the sky at night was. Literally it glowed orange. I felt like I was in the D'ni caverns from Myst, and it really wore on me. My best guess is that one just stops looking up after a while. Or, as a sibling comment notes, you look down at the city as your new sky. Cities can take on a sort of self-importance, an introspective ego, anyhow, since there's so much available that you can be permanently distracted from looking outward or upward. Can't say it wasn't a fun place, but it's not my cuppa joe. But I could easily imagine a [native?] city dweller feeling like they're not missing anything. [EDIT: I guess I just figure some people live in the city because it gives them everything they need. But it certainly made me feel like I lost my sky. I'd be curious to know if you grew up in the city; so far, it seems like that feeling of loss or wrongness is just for people who grew up outside them.]
- djb_hackernews 12y agoI can relate to this. I somehow got in to hiking and camping sometime after college. While my family traveled a good amount, it was never to hike or camp or to remote areas. On my first camping trip in the White Mountains in NH on the 3rd or 4th night I looked up and saw the Milky Way. I was blown away. At this point in my life I was an adult, with responsibilities, a healthy interest in science, and I never really put much thought in to it and I guess figured that whenever I saw starry night pictures that included the Milky Way that it was through a telescope, or an artists rendition, or something. Definitely not that you could actually see the Milky Way with your own eyes. To be honest it's insane. If you haven't seen the Milky Way with your own eyes, go.
- seszett 12y agoI don't want to be too much of a killjoy, but I never understood what was all that fuss about stars. Maybe that's because I've had the reverse experience: I grew up in a place seeing a large amount of stars, where seeing the Milky Way was just expected, and then I moved to larger cities where you can barely see the brightest stars. Well, even though it sure is nice to see the stars when I happen to be in a darker place, I never really missed them at any point. They're a nice feature of the environment, but not something really critical, just like the bird chirps. They're nice to hear on the morning, but you barely notice when they aren't there. When I'm in a city I'm more concerned about the wasted energy revealed by light pollution, and the annoying sound of roaring cars at most hours.
- Raphmedia 12y agoIt's as major an issue as not being able to see the blue sky because of the air pollution. Sure, the light won't give you cancer, but it's still pollution that should be avoided.
- davidcuddeback 12y ago> the light won't give you cancer There are studies that suggest that city lights increase people's risk of cancer. Sleep studies have shown that exposure to blue light suppresses melatonin [1]. Studies with lab mice have shown that melatonin suppresses tumor growth. I don't know how solid the science is on this, so take it with a grain of salt. [1] This is the reason many people use f.lux (https://justgetflux.com/ https://justgetflux.com/).
- m0skit0 12y agoCan't even see the link, how can I see the whole galaxy?
- tempodox 12y agoHow much more trivial can a domain name get? youcaneatyourfoot.com Besides, it seems the servergator ate the site.
- astrobe_ 12y agoDisappointing. Was expecting a view from outside of the galactic plane.
- z5h 12y agoI would argue that the majority of what anyone ever sees, including this text on your screen, is the Milky Way Galaxy. In any case, anyone affected by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 got to see a lot more of the Milky Way. I have never seen it more clearly than during the blackout.
- flaie 12y agoAnother nice site showing light pollution is http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/ http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/ The data hasn't been updated since 2006 but the change should not be that much different. I've contacted the author in the past, for some technical explanation: The NOAA data is the light source data. It uses the light source data as input to a model of light propagation in the atmosphere to estimate the light pollution. This takes into account that the light pollution from a town or city (or natural gas field!) can affect the level of light pollution at locations far removed from the light source. Technically, my light pollution atlas is the amount of artificial sky brightness at zenith. The site features also an overlay on Google Maps which shows the light pollution. It's a nice tool to find night photo spots. The one I've been using for some time with great results: http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/overlay/dark.html http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/overlay/dark.html
- sp332 12y agoHere's a series of images Thierry Cohen made showing the view of the sky from various cities if they had no light pollution. http://architizer.com/blog/lights-out-what-if-cities-swapped-electric-lighting-for-star-studded-skies/ http://architizer.com/blog/lights-out-what-if-cities-swapped...
- robertfw 12y agoWhat I don't like with these shots is that they show an unrealistic picture of what the milky way would look like - the human eye can't detect colour like that. They are beautiful shots but if your intention is to show what it's like if the lights were out, its misleading.
- jug6ernaut 12y agoLooking at the light pollution map [1]. There is a band of light between San Antonio and Corpus Christi that does not follow the cities/roads where you would except to see light. Anyone know what this band represents? [1] http://www.youcanseethemilkyway.com/light-pollution/ http://www.youcanseethemilkyway.com/light-pollution/
- cjeane 12y agoThat would be oil drilling and exploration operations. You can see similar lights in North Dakota.
- jug6ernaut 12y agoAh yes you are right. I had figured this was the case but was not sure. You can look at this map of the Eagle Ford Shale and it matches up almost perfectly. http://shalenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/eagle_ford_map.jpg http://shalenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/eagle_ford_ma...
- BrandonMarc 12y agoI saw the same thing. I've looked at the "earth lights" pictures for years, and you can pick out cities and the basic highway grid ... so those cloudy patches in North Dakota and southwestern Texas stand out. He he, those cloudy patches are what keeps OPEC up at night.
- ynniv 12y agohttp://darksitefinder.com/maps/north-america.html http://darksitefinder.com/maps/north-america.html is a better dark sky map
- scrumper 12y agoIt's worth pointing out that light pollution doesn't mean you can't enjoy the stars. After 20 years living in cities and forgetting much of the sky I loved as a country child, I moved from the heart of Manhattan - a 'white' area in this map (http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/overlay/dark.html http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/overlay/dark.html) - to a suburb half an hour away which is colored red. In the city, I could see Jupiter clearly, and three moons through an ordinary pair of 12x36 binoculars from my 19th floor apartment window. With a very tired $40 yard sale 4" Newtonian refractor I could see bands on the planet on a winter's night. With the naked eye, the Summer Triangle, Capella, Sirius, and a few other very bright stars. None of it all that impressive from a quick glance upwards, but still stuff there to study with conscious effort. Out in my new back yard, the view is breathtaking by comparison. On a very clear night with dark-adapted eyes there is just the hint of the Milky Way. On a normal night, the Pleiades are clear. The Andromeda galaxy is lovely through binoculars. But the real treat is the constellations - gorgeous and vivid, separated, teachable to my children. I've been up Mauna Kea and nothing on earth can compare to that, but as an everyday treat, a bit of mythological theatre wheeling in the sky on a dark night, or even an evening's worth of nebula hunting, I'm blown away by my heavily light polluted back garden.
- cgriswald 12y agoThe light pollution map isn't very good and it doesn't give the full picture. We do astroimaging in the middle of a very bright area, but we are on a hill. A little elevation goes a long way. It also helps that our scopes are in an enclosure which blocks lights from the sides. We can occassionally see the Milky Way on clearer nights. At my new house on a hill, you can see a huge difference being on the deck versus being down (about 50 feet) in the back yard. People who are really interested in doing some viewing should check out local astronomy organizations. They will host star parties and will know the best places locally to do observations.
- scrumper 12y ago50' is 10 floors - quite a deck you have :) Is it better because you're above streetlights? Agreed re: screening: biggest help for me is shutting off house lights and getting to a part of the garden that's shaded from neighbors.
- MiguelVieira 12y agoAnd if you go to the southern hemisphere, you can see two other galaxies: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellanic_Clouds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellanic_Clouds
- nogridbag 12y agoI'm confused how exactly the dates were chosen in the section "Where can i see the Milky Way Galaxy from Earth?" They don't appear correlated to the moon phases calendar.
- maxerickson 12y agoI think they are chosen so that the 'best viewing' lands on an hour. Then you also have to account for the moon.
- b0b0b0b 12y agoDear lazyhackernews, What would the night sky look like with the milky way subtracted out? Thanks in advance!
- semaphoreP 12y agoIf you mean subtracting out all the stars in our entire galaxy, then the night sky would get a lot dimmer. We'd only see the starlight from distant galaxies and the planets of our own solar system. If you mean just the streak across the sky that is the densest part of our galaxy, then there'd just be fainter and more distant stars in our galaxy to take its place. Regardless, it's very hard to know for sure because we reside in the Milky Way and can't see past it.
- maxxxxx 12y agoYou wouldn't see much. Andromeda is the closest galaxy and even that is very faint.
- hhm 12y agoAre the color pictures over exposed? I have seen the Milky Way lots of times (and quite clearly), but it always looked more like an almost gray cloud... I've never seen the kind of bright colors that are usually shown on pictures.
- maxxxxx 12y agoThese pictures usually get taken at 15-30 secs with a very fast lens (f2.8) and an ISO of 1600-6400. You need a pretty dark sky or a lot of post processing. Within 50-100 miles of the background is just brown. If you have a camera with manual control, give it a try. You need a wide angle lens, otherwise you'll get star trails quickly.
- semaphoreP 12y agoYou're probably using the rods in your eyes at night to look at the Milky Way and they can't see color.
- josu 12y agoI thought this was common knowledge. It makes me a bit sad to think that this is not common knowledge.
- cscharenberg 12y agoAnd actually, wouldn't nearly _everything_ you see be the Milky Way galaxy? That's not the point of the site, but struck me just now. I had the same experience you did, while backpacking in New Mexico. The sky was outrageous - I had never seen the whole of the structure.
- ChrisGranger 12y agoYes, pretty much everything visible to the naked eye is going to be the Milky Way. There are a few deep sky objects like the Andromeda Galaxy that you can see from a reasonably dark site though, if your eyesight is good and you know right where to look. (It's pretty easy to find with binoculars but with the naked eye it will just be a small, faint, diffuse glow that doesn't look particularly interesting, assuming you can see it at all.)
- nvader 12y agoIn an absolutely trivial sense, the earth, and everything on it, is part of the Milky Way. All that light pollution is light from the [0]Milky Way reflecting off the [1]Milky Way and thereby obscuring the [2]Milky Way from the [3]Milky Way. [0] cities on a planet of the [1] atmosphere of a planet of the [2] majority of the stars of the [3] only known inhabitants of the
- Inviz 12y agoSorry to sound silly, but I've only seen real milky way in Americas, but never in Asia. It's a common knowledge to me that you can see it, but it doesn't quite match the reality for me.
- josu 12y agoI've seen it from Nepal.
- dustingetz 12y agoThis link just clickjacked my facebook and posted to my feed as me. Flagged.
- tommyd 12y agoIt didn't post to my feed but did "like" the page without asking me. Not on.
- moogleii 12y agoAuto posted and liked for me. Flagging as well.
- rgawdzik 12y agoSeriously that should be illegal.
- markdown 12y agoImagine it happening on a NSFW site. Scary. Never stay signed into FB
- theli0nheart 12y agoSame here. Not cool. If you click through to this link, check your Facebook immediately.
- robertfw 12y agoPrivacy Badger saves the day! https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
- thieving_magpie 12y agoI've always wondered this but have never had it answered. If we're in the Milky Way, isn't it safe to assume that 95% of the stars we can easily see are part of the Milky Way. Basically, how can you NOT see the Milky Way, assuming you don't have some sort of ridiculous light pollution blocking all visibility?
- semaphoreP 12y agoIt's easy to see a few nearby bright stars, but it's hard to see all those dim stars that make up the distinctive structure of the Milky Way.
- Roboprog 12y agoFor those of you in the Bay Area that want to come out to the sticks a little bit, SVAS (Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society) has a pretty nice observing site in the Sierras. (check web site, contact somebody to get in as a guest) Midnight in August provides a very nice view of the Milky Way. Andromeda looks pretty good (bright) through some of the large scopes that people bring up there, as well. (magnification is fairly trivial, you need a large telescope to get brightness)
- maxxxxx 12y agoAndromeda is actually larger than the full moon, but very faint.
- gjkood 12y agoIf you live in the Bay Area (South or East Bay), an easy to reach Dark Sky location is Henry Coe State Park near Gilroy. Doing an overnight camping there is incredible. You can spent all night gazing at the Milky Way. It was really amazing seeing the Milky Way again since my younger days. Try to choose a night that is close to a new/no moon night. You can look up CA dark sky sites here: http://www.observingsites.com/ds_ca.htm http://www.observingsites.com/ds_ca.htm
- RogerL 12y agoA tiny bit south in San Juan Batista is Fremont Peak Observatory. Come and meet some sky geeks, and look through their telescopes! http://www.fpoa.net/tips.html http://www.fpoa.net/tips.html
- schoen 12y agoThis is a great idea. Where the text discusses the origin of the term "Milky Way", I wish they would give the Greek name γαλαξίας κύκλος (at least in transliteration) rather than only giving the translation 'milky circle'. (The text does give the original Latin "via lactea"). I remember when the term γαλαξία was referenced in an amazing conlang puzzle which led to a series of events culminating in my awareness that γαλαξίας is ancient Greek for 'galaxy' (sort of), whereas γαλαξία is ancient Greek for 'milkshake' (sort of).
- benjamincburns 12y agoThe server error on this page is a great example of how to build negative brand recognition. Hint to hosting companies: your error pages aren't a good place from which to link to your sign up page.
- BrandonMarc 12y agoI'm confused by this part. The summer Milky Way will look brighter. If the author is referring to the galactic center being in view, then wouldn't that depend on whether it's summer in the northern hemisphere, or the southern hemisphere? After all, each hemisphere's summer is looking the opposite direction. If the author is simply referring to the season, well I'd think the winter - having longer nights, colder atmosphere, and, at some latitudes, having nights period - would lead to darker skies and better viewing. Can any one enlighten me?
- stargazer-3 12y agoIf you check their how-to-see-the-milky-way section, they give a timetable of what they mean by summer and winter in the two hemispheres.
- mladenkovacevic 12y agoJust came back from a remote location in Cuba. Go out on a clear night, look at the sky for about 2-5 minutes to get your eyes adjusted, and enjoy the density of the milky way before you.
- robertfw 12y agoOne thing I learned while getting into astronomy is that full dark adaptation can take up to 25 minutes. Some will use an eye patch to keep their observing eye dark adapted (this may also be the reason that we associate pirates with an eye patch, to facilitate seeing above and below deck)
- mladenkovacevic 12y agoI should say I did spend even more than 25 minutes per session just staring at the sky from one of the beach chairs.
- bjz_ 12y agoAs a suggestion to the authors: don't center the map on the US by default. It alienates your international audience.