Comments on: Appalachian nocturne: a tour of the eastern US from space

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:38:33 +0000

An issue of National Geographic a couple years ago included a map of the Gulf showing all the pipelines. It’s so much more than I ever would have guessed (frankly, I didn’t even know they used pipelines at sea). And some people think wind farms would be unsightly!

By: Noel

Noel — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:34:33 +0000

Is it just me, or does the atmosphere seem to change thickness?

By: Melusine

Melusine — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:56:26 +0000

Oil rigs. In your still photo that’s New Orleans on the far left and that bump sticking out on the right is Pensacola, FL. From the Texas beaches south of Galveston on a very clear and starry night I was amazed at how many rigs I could see lit up on the horizon and they were stationary. Forget looking out to a dark sea…it’s all dotted with lights. I have a photo during the daytime that shows how many rigs there are there…lots as Justin pointed out with his link. Huge tankers light up too, but of course those move, and there are many moving out of those ports.

In the video, the arc of the northern lights is cool. And they’re natural lights!

By: Wzrd1

Wzrd1 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:49:44 +0000

Chris A, one can appreciate the beauty in the ugly, as in the rainbow colors of an oil slick, whist still not liking it.
I live near Philadelphia, the light pollution is insanely high here, washing out the sky with even the mildest of clouds enough to have difficulties seeing that Betelgeuse is red.
It’s only in winter, when storm systems have finished clearing the atmospheric pollution and the clouds have departed that one can see the colors of the stars (indeed, after the last rain storms passed, Betelgeuse was the nicest shade of pink I ever recall seeing).
On the up side, with all of that light pollution, I find it difficult to ram my car into any fixed object, as it is plainly visible by those polluting street lights. I also find burglars more easily caught before entering someone’s property with that polluting light.
And when I’m in areas with low light pollution, I enjoy the view of the skies.
So, try to see the beauty, even in what is an occupational annoyance or even a significant hamper, lest you live a miserable existence.

By: Chris A.

Chris A. — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:31:51 +0000

Phil:
I took a blogger on UT to task for his description of these images as “gorgeous,” so, to be fair, I have to do the same for you: As an astronomer, I find the sight of all this wasted light/energy to be as “lovely” as the rainbow colors of an oil slick.

The aurora is cool, though.

By: NAW

NAW — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:31:44 +0000

Wow, my hometown is a lot brighter than I thought it was. It is the first bright mass going north on I75 after passing I10.

Though it is crazy knowing what bright spot is what just living in the area.

By: Cephas Borg

Cephas Borg — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:55:02 +0000

Yeah, see I’d be utterly useless in any ISS mission, (except perhaps as ballast, which isn’t particularly useful in space flight! )… I’d spend all my time glued to the eyepiece, (or the windows, or the portholes, or any semi-transparent external surface) and not get any work done.

I found it interesting to see the best and worst our species can achieve juxtaposed like this.

Yes, I do consider light pollution to be a totally unnecessary evil. You-Know-Who has a *lot* to answer for with his alleged “Let there be light!” trick!

And yes, there’s the safety aspect of outdoor lighting, but when you think about it, that says something even *worse* about certain members of our species!

Still, it was wonderful to be a member of the Flying Tin Can club, even for just a few brilliant moments… Thank you!

By: bouch

bouch — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:42:49 +0000

Remi, you make me proud to share the name Boucher!

Few things jumped out at me:

1) How much light pollution there is on Long Island. The whole island seems as bright as many of of the major cities. Freeze at 25 seconds and it seems brighter, and over a much larger area, than Providence, RI, Hartford, CT, or even Boston, MA. (although Boston seems to be under some cloud cover)

2) How bright Norfolk, VA, is. Had to do some quick Google earth to figure out even what city it was. (freeze at 18 seconds)

3) At about 15 seconds in, I realized you can see both Chicago and NYC in the frame for a few seconds.

4) How dark Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are.

And for some reason I thought of the old “I can see my house from up here” joke…

By: Remi Boucher

Remi Boucher — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:46:29 +0000

One of the things me and Guillaume Poulin really loved about this particular timelapse, is the fact that we could easily see the light pollution around where we work (the ASTROLab of Mont-Mégantic) as seen from the ISS. In 2007, the IDA recognized the world’s first International Dark-Sky Reserve around Mont Megantic, Quebec.

I took one of the frames to show approximately where is the Mont-Mégantic Dark Sky Preserve and you can see it by following this link.
http://bit.ly/zOcefG

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:28:59 +0000

While the light pollution on the ground is expansive, to me the most awesome part of this tour is the aurora which begins about half-way through the video. As we move deeper into Cycle 24, these displays will become even more visible in the lower 48.

By: Guillaume Poulin

Guillaume Poulin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:07:07 +0000

About the smoothness of the video, yes, the rate at which pictures were taken was faster, but also we used frame blending when slowing down the video by half.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:44:10 +0000

you can easily see the trellis (ridge-valley structure) of parallel stretches of civilization from Birmingham up through Pittsburgh area. I’ve been through that area but it’s nice to see it from above.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:41:29 +0000

Colonies in a petri dish?

By: justin

justin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:28:22 +0000

Beautiful video! I agree that they are oil rigs. The Deepwater Horizon rig was right in the middle of that grouping, in fact. I’ve stood on the shores of Grand Isle, LA, and there are almost too many rigs to count. It’s a sad sight.

By: Harold

Harold — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:59:18 +0000

My home territory, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton corridor in Northeastern PA, can be seen as a long diagonal stretch to the left of Long Island (just above a similarly-sized diagonal that I assume is the Lehigh Valley.) What surprises me – and shouldn’t – are all the little blue-white dots along Pennsylvania’s northern tier, which used to be a long expanse of lovely darkness in light pollution maps. Those are the glows of gas “fracking” wells in Marcellus Shale country, contaminating the water table below, the surface water and land all around, and the dark skies above. All to extract natural gas which is promptly shipped for sale overseas.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:54:06 +0000

Have you read ‘The Swarm’ by Frank Schätzing yet?

By: Rob Simmon

Rob Simmon — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:46:15 +0000

Phil: the smooth frame rate is because Don Pettit (currently on the ISS) increased the frame rate of the camera captures from 1 every 3 seconds to 1 every second.

By: Dre

Dre — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:44:59 +0000

It’s oil rigs. More than you thought, huh? Well, there’s a whole heck of a lot more than you see in that video!

See geocommons.com/maps/268 for a better representation.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:38:27 +0000

“what are the lights seen in the Gulf of Mexico at the beginning of the video?” <~ Boats, I suspect.

By: Justin Gifford

Justin Gifford — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:38:24 +0000

This links to the locations of floating/semi-submersible rigs in the gulf off of Texas & Louisiana – I’m assuming the fishing is good there? http://www.rodnreel.com/gps/semisub.asp ;
This links to an image from NOAA showing the 3,858 oil & natural gas platforms.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06mexico/background/oil/media/platform_600.jpg&imgrefurl=http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06mexico/background/oil/media/platform_600.html&h=399&w=600&sz=169&tbnid=1quOyEO1mzqB7M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&zoom=1&docid=FLPDiaGO5WCS1M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qw8wT7jyC-X_sQL0wKG3Dg&ved=0CGQQ9QEwBQ&dur=1823