The guest speaker for Nanaimo Astronomy Club’s May meeting will talk about something that likely ranks near the top of any amateur astronomer’s list of annoyances – light pollution.
Lindsay Malbon chose light pollution as the thesis for her master of community planning degree she earned at Vancouver Island University. Malbon, who also holds a bachelor’s degree in sport, health and physical education and anthropology, learned a few things about health and environmental effects of light pollution she will share with Nanaimo Astronomy Society members at the society’s May meeting when she presents Saving the Starry Night.
“One of my teachers was talking about dark sky urban star parks. There’s only two in Canada and I thought that was very interesting, so I did a paper on it and I just continued on for my thesis,” Malbon said.
The project took on “a life of its own,” she said, through interviews and people she talked with about the phenomenon that included urban planners, engineers and dark sky advocacy groups.
Malbon said beyond simply dimming the stars in the night sky, light pollution affects melatonin levels in humans, disrupting sleep patterns which give rise to a range of associated health issues.
Crime is also affected by light pollution, not just in the sky, but on the ground. Area lighting for parking lots, streets and other spaces that’s too bright and too harsh can help create dark shadows that give criminals places to hide instead of driving them away.
“There are also lots of issues with wildlife,” she said. “Birds get distracted by the lights in the night and can crash into buildings. In New York City alone 10,000 birds [annually] are killed.”
Malbon has also become a committee member of the Illumination of Engineering Society’s Sky Glow Calculations Committee, which is made up of light pollution experts from around the world who are working to create a universal online light pollution measurement tool.
From her work Malbon has published a 66-page book, Saving the Starry Night, What Cities Need to Know About Light Pollution.
Malbon said her presentation will start with the history and fundamentals of light pollution before moving on to the current state of light pollution based on information from her research.
“I’m also focusing on the conversion to LEDs, like most cities are doing, including Nanaimo, and discussing what options they have … you kind of have to go case-by-case and what works for a city,” she said.
Bill Weller, with VIU’s physics engineering and astronomy department, with students Mitchell and Andrew Gair, will also make a presentation at next week’s meeting. Their talk is on remote control telescopes, based on construction of two telescopes the brothers co-developed with their father. The talk will discuss how each component, including the mirror, was constructed, the hardware and special components used in the construction and the software employed to control the device during observations.
The Nanaimo Astronomy Society meeting happens May 24 at 7 p.m. at Beban Park social centre.
To learn more, visit www.nanaimoastronomy.com.
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