Milky Way and Skyglow from the Fürstein

Martin Würzer recently sent me this amazing panorama showing the skyglow over Switzerland:

Fürstein 360 Panorama v2 by Martin Würzer is available
under a CC BY-NC-SA license

He took the photo on New Year's Day 2017 around 8 pm, from the peak of the Fürstein. The light from Milan is visible at the far left. It's an amazing photo, and you can see it in full resolution by clicking on the name of the photo in the caption above.

Martin also sent me this image, which shows where at least some of that waste light is coming from:

Illuminated facade by Martin Würzer is available under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License..

That photo was taken shortly before 3 am! There is some good news associated with this photo, however. By having a polite discussion with the architect and the firm that owns the building, Martin convinced them to remove the light that illuminates the facade, and to also improve the other lamps so that they produce less skyglow. Great job Martin!

For Swiss and other German speaking readers, Martin provided two useful references:

• The Swiss chapter of the International Dark-Sky Association
•  Recommendations from the Swiss Government for reducing light pollution

A travel to dark sky places in the USA

Astronomer and natural night sky campaigner Andreas Hänel recently returned from the USA where he traveled 7600 km in order to see the sky at a number of pristine and polluted sites in the American Southwest.

Andreas wrote up his observations, so you can read about his trip (and see dozens of great photos) here (pdf).  When he got back to Germany, he took this great photo in the Black Forest:

Galactic center viewed from the Black Forest by Andreas Hänel
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The view may not be as good as in the parks in the USA, but at least it's good to know that such views still exist in some places in the South of Germany. Maybe 30 years from now, better lighting will help clear the skies further towards the horizon.

The view from your app

Last night Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel and I made measurements of sky brightness as we drove from Berlin to an area close to lake Müritz in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. That region has one of the most pristine night skies in all of Germany, and we had a beautiful view of the Milky Way:

Milky Way over Müritzsee by Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

The area (particularly Nationalpark Müritz) could surely become a Dark Sky Park or Dark Sky Reserve in the future. It would without question make Silver grade, and I think it would have an excellent chance of obtaining Gold. Other than occasional cars (see below), there were no sources of glare whatsoever, and we happened to be sitting just off of the highway. We weren't even actually anywhere near the Nationalpark itself, so I'm sure that you could find far better locations than where we happened to stop to take pictures:

Light pollution researchers in the office, Christopher Kyba (left) Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel (right).

Light domes were confided to very close to the Horizon. Here is the light dome from Berlin, 100 km away:

Light dome of Berlin from 100 km by Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

 Here are the light domes from Malchow (left power pole, 22 km away) and Röbel (center pole, 5 km away). The two blue beams from Malchow are presumably from a church with badly installed floodlighting, and even after seeing the photo we still couldn't see them with the naked eye.

Minor light domes near Müritzsee by Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

We would have liked to explore the area further, but the moon rose, making further observations pointless and forcing us to head back to Berlin:

Moonrise over Nationalpark Müritz by Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

We measured 21.4 mag/arcsec² with a Sky Quality Meter (with the Milky Way at zenith) which means that the top of the sky in the area is nearly free of artificial light. If anyone from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is reading this blog: Everyone knows how beautiful Müritz is in the daytime, now it's time to let people around the world know what a beautiful night sky you have!