I live in a reasonably dark area with fairly good, although not great, skies by most standards (certainly UK ones) but there are still some annoying lights to contend with, such as the lights from the couple of neighbours whose houses and gardens border the north of this one. These houses are not that close to us and there is a footpath between the end of their gardens and the side of ours but there is still a significant degree of light trespass from them. One set of neighbours’ lights, in particular, is irritating, simply because they encroach onto my observing space. They have an outside light they put on when they let their dogs out but this, while a bit aggravating, isn’t so bad as it goes off again ten minutes later, but an upstairs window is really annoying because the light is on all evening and they have no curtains at the window, resulting in light spilling across the garden, and the whole place is lit up like Crystal Palace. Yes, I *could* ask them if they wouldn’t mind doing something about the lights but I don’t know these people and I’d feel awkward asking them, they might think I was some sort of crank and tell me to get stuffed. I know some people do approach neighbours but I am not that forward, although I would be if their house was right next to this one and we were being totally blitzed.
The light trespass situation was made worse last week when the hedge, an evergreen one of mixed species, was cut and a foot of foliage was removed from the top and a foot from the side, meaning that the light now comes right through as well as over the top. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off when I found out what had been done. The hedge belongs to us but my aunt gets a bloke in to cut the hedges and mow the lawn and he took too much off. ‘Well, it’ll grow back’. Yes it will, but not for two or three years and it’s now nearly winter when nothing grows anyway.
To be honest, my observing site is really in the wrong place for light-avoiding but there is nowhere else for it to go and, where it is, I have good views south, west and east. Further down the garden, the house would wipe out the view to the east and south-east.

So, necessity being the mother of invention, I decided to erect some sort of light screen to counteract the lights, although I’d been meaning to do this for some time because there was some light trespass from the house across the way, even before the hedge’s radical hair cut, and the leaves will be off the oak trees soon.
I solicited opinion on Cloudy Nights as to what was the best way to make such a light screen and got a lot of excellent suggestions. Unfortunately these also looked like quite costly suggestions, involving making a frame from a lot of interconnecting plastic water pipes, which I’d have to buy. However my aunt suggested that I used 7ft garden canes and stick them into the hedge, the density of which (despite the cut!) will hold up the canes even with a heavy tarpaulin fixed to them. I shoved four canes through the centre of the hedge and fixed the tarp to them, initially with string, but I will probably get some heavy-duty clips and use those instead because it will be quicker to put up and take down again. I will probably get some black cloth and use that instead of the tarp as it will be lighter to put up and won’t be as noisy as the tarp is.

Without the screen, offending window visible from observing area.

Two of the four canes in place

The tarpaulin in place.

It’s not an ideal solution – that would be me winning the lottery and moving to the Arizona, New Mexico or West Texas deserts, away from neighbours and their stupid overbright and irritating lights, not to mention the crap North Atlantic weather – but it should do the trick. If the neighbours ever notice the light screen – which will be taken down after each session or the following morning – and ask me about it, then I will tell them it is to block out excess light…maybe they’d take the hint.

While I’m in the mood for a moan, why is it that, as soon as the Moon is past last quarter do the effing clouds move back in and the weather turn to crap again?!

I had always got by without a dew heater system or shield and just put up with it, but during recent observing sessions I got so fed up with the Telrad and, especially, the secondary mirror dewing up (which brought sessions to a premature end because there is no way of getting dew off a mirror without resorting to using a hair dryer, which would be unbelievably loud in the dead of night!), I decided to do something about it.

I have invested in a dew-busting system, which consists of a dew heater controller, a Telrad dew heater and a secondary mirror strip, from Astronomia in Surrey. I am waiting for the secondary heater (a Kendrick split secondary heater) to arrive, as Astronomia didn’t have one in stock. The dew controller is powered by a 12 volt power supply, in this case a power supply with inverter, which is intended by its manufacturer to jump start cars and supply back up power for caravans and boats, which I got from a car parts supplier.

AWR dew heater controller

Telrad dew heater

The dew heater fitted to the Telrad

While I was spending money (the proceeds of the sale of my 12 inch) I decided to get a TeleGizmos scope cover from the Widescreen Centre. It was expensive but worth it to protect the scope. The particular one I got is designed to fit 18-20 inch f/4.5 truss dobs, with a bit of room to spare. It should also help keep condensation off the primary mirror because it will keep the scope cool even when the shed heats up during the morning, as it will do on all but the coldest winter day.

Something else I am going to try in order to keep condensation off the mirror is to put a heated mat, of the sort used to keep reptiles’ tanks warm, in the rocker box. The mat won’t get hot but should keep the mirror from looking like it was dumped in a swimming pool each morning.

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In the current edition of the local paper, in the Nature Notes section, there is a piece by Helen Shaw, all about light pollution and its effects on wildlife, titled ‘We are in the dark over light pollution‘. It’s good to see that people other than amateur astronomers are concerned about this as it shows it has far-reaching effects and doesn’t just affect a tiny minority of the population. At an event our society attended back in August, the general public were pretty clued-up about light pollution and nearly everyone agreed that it needs to be addressed, so we are getting somewhere. I feel as if someone else’s lights trespassing is the equivalent of cigarette smoke being blown in your face and just as anti-social – I got told off for using that analogy on Cloudy Nights a few days ago (I have no idea why) but I make no apologies for it as I think it is a good one. If not cigarette smoke, then excessive noise, perhaps.
I have sent in the following, for the letters section, and it will be interesting to see what the reply will be – if they publish it. I am not given to writing to the press, especially local press, but light pollution is something I feel strongly about enough to do so.

I was pleased to see Helen Slade’s Nature Notes article on light pollution in the October 7th IWCP. Light pollution is a problem which has been allowed to get out of hand over the years, to the extent that an ugly orange glow hangs above our towns and cities from street lighting.
All that orange glow hanging over Newport, Sandown, Shanklin, Ryde, etc, at night represents our council taxes – and electricity – being wasted by light being shone into the sky where it is not needed, rather than down onto the ground where it is. In this age of energy prices rising all the time and with concerns over CO2 emissions, surely this can’t be allowed to continue?
Light pollution also results from badly-directed security lights and other lighting fixtures on homes and businesses, fixtures which have proliferated over the past couple of decades, and a lot of excess light spills onto other people’s properties and onto roads. If you want to illuminate your property no-one is saying you can’t but, please, just keep it to yourselves. We all need to see where we are going, but zillion-watt security lights shining across roads and into neighbours’ gardens is just overkill. Also, light trespass (light nuisance) is also actually against the law, as of April 2006.
Amateur astronomers, naturalists, environmentalists and people who would just like to see a natural night sky without hideous and intrusive artificial lighting don’t want to turn off the lights completely. We all know that some light is needed but only where it is most effective, which is downward onto the ground and not up into the sky or shining onto other people’s property.
People tend to think that lots of light equals safety. It doesn’t, particularly if you’re dazzled by misdirected lighting. Neither does it reduce crime. Criminals and people indulging in anti-social behaviour don’t have better night vision than law-abiding people, they need light to see, too.
Also, according to a report in the Independent newspaper recently, light pollution can affect property prices because people don’t want to live in an excessively-lit area.
However, it does seem that light pollution is beginning to be recognised as the anti-social and unpleasant thing it is and it is good to see that more people are becoming aware of the problem.
More information can be found at the Campaign for Dark Skies:http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies and also from the Campaign to Protect Rural England: www.cpre.org.uk (I am not, by the way, a representative of either CfDS or CPRE).

By the way, here is a link to the Independent article: ‘Homebuyers are looking for splendid isolation and a pristine view of a star-filled sky‘