Welcome to the 9th European Symposium for the Protection of the Night Sky!
The 9th European Symposium for the Protection of the Night Sky takes place from September 17th - 19th 2009 in Armagh, Ireland. The Symposium will deal with the issue of light pollution, its effects on the environment, health, and astronomy and examine how bad lighting is contributing to global climate change.
Latest News
Light Pollution and Sleep
Thursday, 24 June 2010 22:17
Steven Lockley (Harvard Medical School)
Humans, like many other species, have evolved in the presence of the daily light-dark cycle generated by the Earth’s rotation about its axis. This 24-hour light-dark signal has provided a powerful evolutionary pressure for adaptation to particular temporal niches, for example, adaptation to being day-active (diurnal) or night-active (nocturnal). It is only relatively recently that humans have developed the capacity to generate light. In the last 120 years, however, access and exposure to artificial light at night have become pervasive in all industrialised nations and are becoming increasingly so in the developing world. This light affects all organisms exposed to it, not just humans, and the consequences of such a dramatic alteration in one of the most powerful environmental signals is not yet known. Given its relatively recent introduction, we are only at the beginning of understanding the impact of artificial light on human health. Research over the past 80 years, however, has shown that light exerts very powerful effects on human physiology, endocrinology and behaviour, and, having evolved in a distinct light-dark cycle, it is likely possible that unnatural exposure to artificial light at night is hazardous to human health. This presentation will review the effects of light on human biology and how these effects should be considered for ensuring a healthy light and dark environment.
Dim lights
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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 June 2010 22:21
Shedding Light on Bat Behaviour
Wednesday, 24 March 2010 15:21
Shedding Light on Bat Behaviour—How Street Lights Disturb Commuting Bats Emma Stone, S. Harris and G. Jones (University of Bristol) Artificial lighting schemes can damage bat foraging habitat directly, through loss of land and fragmentation, or indirectly by severing commuting routes from roosts, polluting watercourses and foraging habitat. The impact of street lighting on bat activity was tested using experiments along lesser horseshoe bat commuting routes at eight sites across Wales and South West England. Hedgerows were illuminated at a mean of 53 lux using two portable high-pressure sodium street lights. Bat activity was recorded using AnaBat remote acoustic detectors. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the effect of experimental treatment on bat activity. Treatment type had a significant effect on bat activity (p 0.01). Contrasts demonstrated that all light treatments were significantly different from controls (p 0.05), demonstrating that high-pressure sodium light has a negative effect on lesser horseshoe bat activity. This study has provided the first empirical evidence of a negative effect of high-pressure sodium lights on commuting horseshoe bats and has significant conservation implications for bat habitat management at sites affected by light pollution. Results from this study will be used to develop evidence based mitigation guidance for bats and lighting in the UK.
The next meeting of the NIAAS is on Monday 1st February, starting at 8pm sharp in Ballyclare High School lecture theatre. Directions can be found here!
This is our annual Andrew Trimble Memorial lecture and we are very fortunate to have along Albert White as our guest speaker.
Albert White runs the Irish Section of the IDA, the Irish Light Pollution Awareness Campaign. He holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin and a Master of Science in Astronomy from Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Albert is a member of South Dublin Astronomical Society and currently works as a software engineer for Sun Microsystem in Dublin. He is a former Chairperson of the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2005.
Since light pollution is a major problem to most of us in our hobby, who better to give a talk on the subject than Albert White, one of the leading experts on the subject in Ireland.
The IYA2009 UK Dark Sky Parks Initiative ( pdf ) Steve Owens (UK Coordinator for IYA 2009, Glasgow Science Centre, Scotland) The Dark Skies Awareness cornerstone project of IYA2009 has two main manifestations in the UK. Dark Sky Discovery community projects, and the Dark Sky Parks initiative. Steve Owens will highlight the second of these two projects, and describe the progress of Galloway Forest Park, which is set to submit its application to the IDA before the end of 2009.
Albert White runs the Irish Section of the IDA, the Irish Light Pollution Awareness Campaign. He holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin and a Master of Science in Astronomy from Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. 