search lights over city centre

I'm not one little bit impressed by these searchlights. If the form goes like last year they'll be gone after the St Patrick's festival. I wonder who the bright spark is, who thought it would be a good idea to ruin the night sky for st pats day? Of course if we complain we'll be seen as a group of marginalist cranks:(

Of course if we complain we'll be seen as a group of marginalist cranks:(

Need to work out who to complain to first

When complaining about light pollution you can easily allways come across as a marginalist crank, and thats polite

Typically with these "light shows" the best you can do is highlight the cost, both the running cost and any cost to get the event set up.

Then point out that it only is effective on cloudy nights, ideally with thick fog, and that it is useless on clear nights.

See if anyone else notices these lights. Presumably they are to promote something, and even the observant people (us!) dont know what.

Then you can constructivly complain to those responsible that that they are wasting a lot of money, wasting energy (and therefore contributing to our Kyoto fines and ESB bills), lighting up some low cloud over Dublin, that most people, if they notice will not know what it is for (since images and lettering are not distinguishable). And that this money could have been better used promoting the event by for example <insert any idea>.

If you must you can mention it being bad for astronomy.

Cheers,
~Al

Guys,

We had this over Bangor for months last year. I think it was from a local hotel. It is very frustrating.

Simon

Great!! All that wattage and candle power and no one seems to know what it's about, bloody typical isn't it. What an expensive waste of time!

Stephen & Gang,

This is a little late getting to you (been v. busy with work, don't you know :twisted: ).
I was standing beside these 2 searchlights last week at George's Dock, IFSC.

BMW had evening parties going on to promote the new 3 Series, and these things were pointing aimlessly to th sky.

(they were each ~d60cm and spaced 10m apart).