Bright-Lights, Big-City, Overcast Survival Guide

Mercury, May/June 2004 Table of Contents

Courtesy of S. W. White

by Steven W. White

Gray skies and light pollution do not spell the end for your sky watching—they make it more challenging and potentially more rewarding.

I used to live in Tucson, Arizona, under the darkest skies in the United States. I was so obsessed with amateur astronomy that I actually made my living at it, teaching it at the Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center and guiding others to the wonders of the heavens. I reveled in that perfect sky. I could see the bright crumpled silk of the Milky Way from my back yard. My telescope sat just inside my back door, and I only moved it fifteen feet to do my deep-sky observing.

My new home has some of the worst skies of the country. The total number of cloudy and partly cloudy days per year is, on average, 294. The United States Weather Bureau started their Seattle record in 1893. Care to guess the first word of the first entry? "Cloudy…" And the place hasn't changed.

Then there's the skyglow. I mean, why not? If there's nothing to see up there but Seattle's cloudy roof, there's no reason to struggle against light pollution. That battle was lost long ago.

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