

How would the night sky look if we could turn off all the lights? - palidanx
http://audiovision.scpr.org/168/darkened-cities

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johnchristopher
This has already been discussed here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5463888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5463888)
from
[http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/2013/03/darkened-...](http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/2013/03/darkened-
cities)

I wish we could go lighter on nighttime light pollution.

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Sharlin
You would never see something like that over a major metropolis without also
removing "regular" particulate pollution and heat haze. And it would _still_
not look like that to the bare eye. To a camera with a long enough exposure,
sure.

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Retric
In areas with low light pollution and a clear sky it really does look like
that. Even without the moon there is plenty of light to walk around without a
flashlight and the sky is really breathtaking. Granted, while you do get some
color perception things look a little more black and white than those photos
and you get a little low light static.

Edit: Though I have noticed some people have really poor night vision so your
mileage may vary.

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wikiburner
I'm so glad to hear that. I had sort of assumed those breathtaking photos you
see of the Milky Way were the result of long exposure tricks.

It sounds kind of silly, but I live in a really terribly light-polluted area
where you're lucky to see a dozen or so stars at night if it isn't cloudy, and
my dream vacation is just to go out to Arizona or maybe the middle of the
ocean, just to see the stars properly for once.

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fractallyte
Astronaut Michael Collins, on looking back at Earth from a great distance: "I
really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their
planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally
changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument
silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its
subdivisions, presenting a unified façade that would cry out for unified
understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears:
blue and white, not capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor;
blue and white, not envious or envied."
([http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-164_Collins_s...](http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-164_Collins_statement.html))

These photos show the opposite.

It's a vast universe out there; more humans need to see it...

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walid
Breathtaking! Although I only got to see the milky way in the sky because of a
power outage, it was worth it.

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djd
Milky Way is never visible so clearly to the naked eye, its just the high
exposure shot that makes it visible.

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rimantas
They key words are _so clearly_. It is definitely visible but without that
many details. Also, these photos show way to many details near the horizont,
even without the light pollution the thicknes of the atmosphere would have
effect.

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mieubrisse
Ever since I saw the first post on this here, I've wondered about automating
this to some degree of accuracy. Contrast recognition on the skyline/cityscape
image to delete the light-polluted sky I can't imagine would be too hard, a
bit of math could tell you where in the world this sky would be in the next
few hours to filter an image database search (provided the images had location
and time data), and combining the two would be relatively simple. The biggest
part I can't get around is maintaining the shot angle so it's EXACTLY the same
sky. The image database, too, would have to be pretty extensive.

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dschiptsov
The way it looks in Himalayas, why?

 _Much_ cleaner air and a few kilometers less of it.

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tyng
Beautiful but creepy

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danwolff
Obviously, light pollution is the best kind because it goes away within
minutes of turning off the source. Who the fuck cares about this.

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rman666
Who cares about this? Anyone with an interest in astronomy, obviously.

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johnchristopher
I strongly believe (but have not much to back it up) that turning nights into
days as we do has consequences on our psyche and biological cycles. It blurs
the distinction between night and day.

I wish my local councilmen would try to experiment no light at nights and see
what comes out.

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ams6110
_no light at nights and see what comes out_

Jack the ripper?

