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Column: Obscured by the light
When Alex Zhai was in Oregon a few years ago and saw a purple sky, he thought it was a quirk of the Pacific Northwest. When he recently saw the same phenomenon in Champaign, he realized something was up.
TWO SUMMERS AGO, I attended a residential summer camp in Portland, Ore. The dorms had large windows right next to the beds, and on the first night I gazed up to find tall trees against an unexpected background — purple sky.
The night sky was astonishingly bright, with small clouds that appeared nearly white.
I had never seen that before, so I assumed it was something unique to Oregon and didn't really think about it any further.
The skies I remembered from childhood were black and usually contained at least a few stars.
The sky I saw in Portland was more like a serene version of a mostly clear day. No stars were visible.
I actually liked the purple. It reminded me of an eerie backdrop to some surrealist painting. When I left the camp, I thought I would never see it again.
I was mistaken.
A couple nights ago, I was startled to see the purple again as I was looking out the window in Champaign. Not totally convinced the phenomenon could happen at home, I decided to check the sky for the next several days. Indeed, every day there was at least a tint of purple.
I also noticed that a distinct glow emanated from the direction of downtown Champaign-Urbana. For me, that confirmed a nagging suspicion: That wonderful purple hue was light pollution. A quick Google image search told me I was right.
I'm not sure how big of a problem light pollution is. Certainly there is a host of negative consequences, from disrupting bird migration to forcing planetariums to move away from cities, but compared to the other environmental issues we have, maybe it's relatively unimportant.
However, in spite of my fondness for purple nights, I realized that it has been years since the depth of space captured my imagination.
It's a lot of trouble to turn off the thousands if not millions of lights that remain on through the night, but I wish that for just one night, I could see the stars again.
Note: An earlier version of this column appeared in the Gargoyle staff blog.
RELATED
— Background on light pollution: Save the Night in Europe
— International campaign: StarLight Initiative to reduce light pollution
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