The stars at night....

Light pollution is a serious concern to astronomers. With more and more lights in the environment, finding a dark place to observe the sky is getting harder. The link provided above is to a panoramic photo taken in Death Valley, California. You can't observe the sky like that with light around.

The small neighborhood I live in was quite old when we moved there. The road narrow, the utilities old, trees all around. Over the years, though, housing developments have sprung up onto the once pasture land. With these developments come the additions to infrastructure that are needed. The roads are scheduled for widening. New utility poles were installed further back off the street. These new poles also contained new street lamps. Bright lamps. So bright, that the ambient light level has been increased to the point where it interferes with casual astronomical observations from the back yard. If not for the few remaining trees surrounding my house, it would be quite hard to observe anything that didn't have the brightest of luminosity.