Sky Glow

Lindsay Magill, Wallace High School, Lisburn, 22 August 2003

Sky Glow on Charlton Heath Photo by Bob Mizon This was taken on Charlton Heath, 20 miles away from Poole and Bournemouth

Introduction

About Light Pollution

Eliminating Light Pollution

Survey of Armagh

Conclusion

Evaluation

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Glossary

The Armagh Observatory is adversely affected by the growing problem of light pollution in the Cathedral City of Armagh. This superfluous light pollutes the sky making it almost impossible to observe any stars near the horizon, and severely impairing observations in all of it. When the Observatory has finished being fully restored this will mean that their money has been wasted in repairing the dome and telescope unless light pollution can be reduced.

A report needed to be written on the impact of light pollution on Armagh, why people should change it and how to do it. When this was done it could be presented to the Government in hopes of getting legislation passed to stop its spread and reverse the problems already there.

Two other people and I were asked to produce a draft report for this purpose. It was to include research into why light pollution should be stopped, the amount of money wasted by bad lighting, environmental factors and a survey of lighting in Armagh. This would allow the Observatory to make a case against light pollution.

This report provides a summary of the work that was carried out at the Armagh Observatory during a 4-week period in July and August, 2003. This work was supported by a Nuffield Foundation Science Bursary.