Can we illuminate our cities and (still) see the stars?
Salvador Bará, Fabio Falchi, Raul C. Lima, Martin Pawley
Could we enjoy starry skies in our cities again? Arguably yes. The actual number of visible stars will depend, among other factors, on the spatial density of the overall city light emissions. In this paper it is shown that reasonably dark skies could be achieved in urban settings, even at the center of large metropolitan areas, if the light emissions are kept within admissible levels and direct glare from the light sources is avoided. These results may support the adoption of science-informed, democratic public decisions on the use of light in our municipalities, with the goal of recovering the possibility of contemplating the night sky everywhere in our planet.
Comments: Twelve pages, five figures. Author formatted version of a paper accepted for publication in International Journal of Sustainable Lighting (2021)
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:2109.05310 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2109.05310v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Salvador Bará
