lights in dublin

I can see it all te way to bloody Maynooth Grrrrrrrr

:oops: That'll be me pointing them at your back garden.

And for those of you living too far away to see this `spectacle`, here is the view from my garden, about 10 miles away. (15sec, ISO 50, F2.5, Canon G3)

My condolences.
As if the light pollution wasn't bad enough.
Make the most of it and get them to draw out Leo or something

On my way to 'work' last night, I could see the beams swirling in the skies from Miltownpass, a couple of miles from Kinnegad, about 25 miles from Maynooth, about 15 miles form city center.... you get the point!

Seanie.

Hey, the Dublin lights have just been featured on Slashdot.

slashdot.org/articles/04/04/26/111219.sh...d=133&tid=186&tid=99

For the Slashdot unaware, this is biggest tech-news geek site on the net which has the infamous "slashdot effect" - that's when half a million geeks click on a news related link and bring a web site down... for those that hate the light display, think of this as a quiet form of revenge. :twisted:

Dear Irish Astronomy community,

It is with great interest that over the past few days I have reviewed detailed information regarding dark skies. I have followed the discussion in this forum as well as on the uk.sci.astronomy newsgroup and Slashdot. I have learnt a lot about ways to reduce the impact of light pollution and I thank you for having such great resources for learning about this important issue.

As the author of "Vectorial Elevation", the interactive lighting project currently showing in Dublin for the enlargement of the EU, I would like to make a few comments:

1. The project was originally designed for Mexico City, where I was born. As you can imagine for a city with 22 million people, 4 million vehicles and considerable airborne pollution, the impact of my lights was negligible. I have always thought it crucial that the project be set-up only in large cities where there would already be too much light for astronomy. Alas, as Albert's photograph clearly shows, Dublin is small enough that astronomers in the region are affected. Sorry about my contribution to the problem…from now on I will make sure to place this installation in larger cities.

2. This project is designed to be an ephemeral installation. As you may know it is in Dublin only for 10 nights. It is my belief that the greatest contribution towards achieving dark skies will be lobbying for the change of permanent lighting fixtures, not short-term installations. It is true that we can use my installation to bring about discussion on the subject, and to an extent that is what is happening, for example, at the Slashdot website.

3. For the artwork to be seen properly from the street I have always asked the authorities to turn OFF all other public lighting. In Dublin the authorities refused to do this because of security concerns (understandable after the Madrid bombings). Probably if all the public lights on O'Connell Street were turned off we would still have a net diminution of the light levels.

4. For what is worth, I like to think of my work as being within the long tradition of "Sky Art" (e.g. Piene, Malina, etc), which seeks to direct attention to the sky and space to ask questions about our own place in the world. Indeed, my previous interactive searchlight project "Amodal Suspension" (at www.amodal.net ) was opened by a live message coming from the International Space Station by Astronaut Pedro Duque and from Earth by Astronaut Mamoru Mohri. An astronomer in Mexico City told me that until Vectorial Elevation, he had never seen people in the Zócalo Square actually looking up and contemplating the sky.

5. The project is an open, uncensored platform. I invite you to visit and send your own messages, these will appear in a big screen located on O'Connell street and in a personal web page that the system will make for you. So far we have had over 300,000 visitors from 77 countries visit the website (41 per cent from Ireland) and you are welcome to view their web pages featuring very interesting messages (including poetry, politics, marriage proposals, dedications, etc.). I would be very happy if you used the platform to raise awareness of light pollution. The address is:
www.dublinelevation.net

Thanks for your attention. I would be happy to receive any comments through this forum or directly at rafael@lozano-hemmer.com

All the best,

Rafael