Article List:

1. Tomato factory lights mistaken for ‘lovely aurora’, George King, BBC News.
2. World’s largest digital camera will be a ‘game-changer’ for astronomy, Jacopo Prisco, CNN.
3. Brightness of the Qianfan Satellites, Arxiv.
4. Meteors vs space junk: Are we seeing more fireballs in the sky than there used to be?, Jacinta Bowler, ABC News.
5. Solar power from satellites poised to become reality within a year, Zo Ahmed, Techspot.
6. China’s secretive new ‘Thousands Sails’ satellites are an astronomer’s nightmare, 1st observations reveal, Harry Baker, LiveScience.
7. Space Agency seeks feedback on solutions to light pollution, Adam Thorn, SpaceConnect.
8. Revised green-building incentive program could expand options for Arlington developers, Scott McCaffrey, ARL Now.
9. EMPORIUM: Cameron Co. dark sky meeting set for Nov. 14, Bradford Era.
10. Gibbston residents prepare to fight 900-lot fast track plan, Debbie Jamieson, The Press.
11. Queenstown’s ski areas, housing, mining and golf get government boost, Debbie Jamieson, The Press.
12. Labour councillors back residents’ campaign to stop street lighting along The Leas, Ryan Smith, The Shields Gazette.
13. STOP South Tyneside Council’s Installation of Lampposts on the Coast Road, Change.org.
14. Lighting Impact Assessment (NCN1 Cycleway, Coast Road, South Shields), South Tyneside Council.
15. Lamp-post plan for Northern Lights spot opposed, BBC.
16. Why Scientists Are Linking More Diseases to Light at Night, Marta Zaraska, WebMD.
17. Association between outdoor artificial light at night and low birth weight in California, International Journal of Environmental Health Research.
18. Light Pollution and Its Effects on Human Health and the Environment: A Review, Asia Journal of Environment and Ecology.
19. Apple iOS 18 Review, Gabriel Zamora, PC Mag.
20. World’s second Sphere will be built in UAE capital after the first opened in Las Vegas, Associated Press.
21. Quarterly Reports, Sphere.
22. Lighting the Way: Dripping Springs recognizes local Night Sky stewards, Ken Vargas, Dripping Springs News.
23. Kaikoura recognised as New Zealand’s third ‘International Dark Sky Sanctuary’, Times of India.
24. A Town Once Thought to Be Cursed Is Now the World’s Newest Dark Sky Park, Suzie Dundas, Matador Network.
25. Astro Adventurers, Skyscanner.

A 56 year old woman named Dee Harrison had thought she finally saw the northern lights! The sky was rich in red and pink glows, akin to what you’d expect from an aurora.

And I picture this with the level of excitement my mother felt when she, for the first time this October, saw the aurora with her own eyes.

Her excitement, however, was short lived and quickly deflated when someone on social media pointed out that the glow was actually grow lighting used in a tomato factory nearby.

Well, that’s quite a bummer.

Good news in astronomy this month. Construction is ending and the Vera Rubin observatory down in Chile plans to switch on next year! The telescope has a camera resolution of 3200 megapixels. To put that into perspective most of your consumer grade DSLR cameras sit in the 20-100 megapixel ballpark. The operators plan to chart the night sky with upwards of 1,000 photos a night!

That is good news, but they might have some competition for that piece of the sky they’re looking at. I know we have talked quite extensively about satellites over the last few months, but hey – they’re in the news. The space race has been renewed, but this time it’s the space economy race!

Last month, we recounted stories of the AST BlueBirds, and the month before, we had a story on the new Starlink cellular communications satellites.

Well, over in China, they sent up the initial round of 18 of their Qianfan communications satellites to build, wait for it, a mega constellation to rival Starlink. Similar to AST and Starlink, these satellites are projected to be bright, very bright.

In a study yet to be released, researchers are estimating that the satellites will be upwards of 4th magnitude at zenith while fading to a dim 8^th magnitude on the horizons.

And what the hell, since we’re talking about bright things in the sky, a new startup from a Robinhood cofounder, Baiju Bhatt called Aetherflux looks to beam infrared light down to stations below in an effort to build renewable energy sources, potentially for remote, off the grid areas. They plan to begin launching test satellites in 2025.

And since we’re here, while watching the Perseids or looking up at night, did you ever wonder if that shooting star was actually a meteorite or a piece of space junk? Here’s a quick guide according to Dr. Ellie Samsoon.

Per ABC News in Australia, if it’s five to six seconds long, it’s “probably a fireball.” If it’s “minutes long and you’re able to get your phone out, it’s more likely to be space debris.”

In the news this month, we did have one upbeat story regarding the space economy. The Australian Space Agency solicited submissions on how to incorporate First Nations cultural and scientific knowledge into their space sector – which includes potential protections for viewing the night sky. Australia is projected to be impacted quite negatively by the growing brightening of the night sky due to low earth orbit objects.

A couple of stories came in regarding growth and regional development and I’m curious about your take on these.

First, down in Gibbston, New Zealand. Located in what’s locally called the ‘Valley of the Vines,’ Gibbston is notable to folks all around the world for the award winning wines that derive from the Central Otago wine region. Residents, who are part of the ‘Friends of the Gibbston Character Zone’ have decidedly railed against a new government approved plan to install a new community inside its confines.

The Gibbston Village Project plans to bring in 900 houses, 2.4 hectares of commercial facilities, and a school. This comes as the general Queenstown area experiences what looks to be unprecedented fast track development – development that those in opposition claim has bypassed community input and community feedback. Other proposed developments in the region share similar goals of sizable population growth. Included in there is also an expansion of mining operations, hospitals and more.

New development would increase the population over 5 fold, and the opposition is gravely concerned at the loss of their new International Dark Sky Park designation. The developer plans to make concessions for light controls to retain the designation. At the time of this recording, the Queenstown council has yet to review the proposal.

Second, we also have this story from across the pond in the UK. It all started when residents living adjacent to the Leas nature reserve in the South Shields section of South Tyneside, UK noticed new 32 ft high street light poles being erected.  The residents, vocally opposed to new lighting, organized and put together a Change.org petition garnering over 1,000 signatures. The project, which was initiated by the local leaders of South Shields, apparently also failed to notify the National Trust, the organization which helps to maintain the Leas.

From a high level, the plan appears to be a very sensible one – modernize a cycling path adjacent to a roadway, which includes additional protections for bikers. Thanks in part to the pushback from the community, South Shields is looking to implement responsible practices for the street lights – including shielding and warmer temperatures than initially planned.

Rounding out the policy news, we have a couple more quick stories.                                                     

First, Arlington, Virginia has created a new draft proposal for an update to their over twenty year old Green Building Incentive Program, last updated in 2020.  Developers would receive incentives, be it density allotments or financial government subsidies, to build provided that they addressed a number of environmental issues including “climate-resiliency” and a variety of pollution mitigations, including light. It would also prioritize tree canopy and bird-friendly building specifications. The draft will be voted on in 2025 and is still being revised.

Next, local to me, well relatively at least, for those listeners on the east coast looking for a second dark sky mecca, the Cameron County Dark Sky planning committee has continued its work and had their second meeting on November 14^th to workshop initial ideas from the June 6^th public meeting. This is in regard to the proposal in Emporium, Pennsylvania to turn a reclaimed mine/landfill into a dark sky park.

We have some quick items on the health front this month.

First, a study out of the International Journal of Health Research found that through using satellite imagery, there was a significant correlation between artificial light at night and low birth weight.

There were also two really good summary pieces that I’m mentioning in the event if someone wants to check out these links.  One from WebMD does a fantastic job summarizing the state of the research in artificial light at night and health in simple, readable English. Another one from the Asia Journal of Environment and Ecology does much the same but in a more technical and detailed manner.

Before we leave the health segment, this kind of ties in with health news. It’s really a tech story, but for you Apple iPhone users, I’m not sure if you realized this in your upgrade to iOS 18. iOS 18 now has an ‘automatic’ setting for your screen icons to go into a ‘dark’ mode which will essentially remove much of the residual white light from your screen.

And here’s an additional pro tip – if you aren’t aware of how to turn your iPhone’s screen red when in a nighttime environment, definitely look that up – and once you do you’ll be able to add a shortcut to that functionality right on your pull down screen under ‘color filters.’

Let’s round out the show this month with this next one and some well deserved recognitions.

In case you haven’t heard, the Sphere is expanding! Well, it’s adding a second location that is! The Sphere Abu Dhabi will bring its innovative, immersive experience – along with all the light pollution one could ever dream of, to the United Arab Emirates’ capital city.  From initial details, it appears that Abu Dhabi will be forking part of the bill. The sphere itself closed its fiscal year back at the end of June, for which it incurred a sizable loss driven by facility related depreciation expenses. It should be noted that the Sphere went into operation in October of 2023, therefore it didn’t have a revenue stream for three of the 12 month period.

In Dripping Springs, Texas, located in Hill Country to the west of Austin, the Hays County Friends of the Night Sky awarded thirteen area businesses a ‘Be a Star’ award! These businesses instituted responsible lighting practices that both served to make patrons feel safe and protected the local environment. Dripping Springs became the first Texas city to become a Dark Sky Community way back in 2014.

In designations, let’s welcome Saudi Arabia’s AIUIa which earned an International Dark Sky Park Certification! Also, we missed welcoming Kaikoura into the fold back in September – not sure what happened there, but let’s cheer on the work folks did to help create the new International Dark Sky Sanctuary in New Zealand!

Congratulations on the hard work that went into protecting those sites!

Now, Paul, this falls in line with what you have written about quite a while back.  Well, the travel site, Skyscanner believes that 2025 will be the year of astro-tourism. This is driven by the huge year we had in astronomy related tourism. Per Skyscanner, the April eclipse topped Google for travel related search terms. Overall, Skyscanner found that 54% of participants in the poll were interested in catching the Northern Lights, 37% were interested in watching an eclipse (regardless of solar or lunar apparently), and 37% were interested in going to an observatory. 

I want to add that the publication believes that young folks seeking out the stars are also very interested in astrology. Now, I don’t know if that’s simply the author confusing astronomy with astrology, which astoundingly is quite common in the articles I read, but to add credence to the homage to an ancient form of mysticism, the article determined that 74% of those who supposedly fit a gen z age group believed that astrology will determine their next trip.