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 How does light pollution affect views through my telescope?
Answer

Light pollution makes the sky much brighter than the natural night sky. It has significant impacts on astronomy, drowning out the light from faint objects like galaxies and nebulae and increasing the sky background for faint stars. 

Your views will be very different in a dark country sky versus a light-polluted city.Your naked-eye view will be stunning in the dark skies and correspondingly beautiful differences will be seen through the eyepiece.

Only views of the moon and bright planets aren’t significantly affected by light pollution. However, they are often better seen from dark-sky locations as well, primarily because these more remote locations usually have less air pollution, haze and often better seeing conditions than urban observing sites.

Here are examples (nebula, open cluster and galaxy) of what you can see in a dark sky versus a light-polluted sky through 6- and 11-inch scopes. (Your actual views may differ.) 

The planetary nebula M57 with an 11-inch in a dark sky  






















With a light-polluted sky
  


M57 with an 6-inch in a dark sky
 

With a light-polluted sky


The Double Cluster with an 11-inch in a dark sky


With a light-polluted sky


The Double Cluster with an 6-inch in a dark sky


With a light-polluted sky


The Andromeda Galaxy with an 11-inch in a dark sky
  

With a light-polluted sky



The Andromeda Galaxy with an 6-inch in a dark sky


With a light-polluted sky




Article Details
Article ID: 2201
Created On: Apr 21 2009 01:39 PM

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