Astrophysicist Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel has been involved in light pollution issues since the mid-1990s and has contributed to over 100 articles, many related to light pollution. He is the leader of “Cities at Night,” a citizen-supported project coordinated with NASA and other space agencies that use ISS night imagery to raise light pollution awareness.

Alejandro discusses his personal experiences with light pollution, and his analysis of pictures of cities at night taken from the International Space Station. These pictures led to a discussion on crime statistics and its relation to electric outdoor light at night. European cities with significantly varying amounts of outdoor light at night had no noticeable difference in levels of violent crime. While this observation is anecdotal, it leads to the conclusion that more study is needed to challenge, not confirm, the standard assumption that more electric light means less violence and crime. It was further postulated that the reverse may be true.

Harun Mehmedinovic is an astrophotographer, speaker, documentary filmmaker and dark sky advocate. He finds his deepest connections to nature while looking up at night and is doing his best to spread the word and save it for everyone.

In our conversation we discussed his status as a ‘hack’ compared with night-time photographers from the scientific community, the pale imitation of daytime we’re creating in our cities, the value of travel, how his work does seem to unify everything, his ideas about working with police and security experts, and plus fun fact about fireflies.

Find more from Harun at his website

Sponsored by https://www.RabLighting.com/darksky

Ruskin Hartley, Executive Director of the International Dark Sky Association joins us to discuss his work and experiences in the association.

Right now the IDA is working to grow beyond their roots in amateur astronomers in several directors. The group is forging partnerships with other bodies with an interest in lighting to further their goals, looking at the input of ecologists and medical experts, broadening the ethnic and gender diversity within the organisation, working with designers to understand how to light outside with quality and responsibility in mind, and reaching out to regulators to keep the sky dark and the parts of the ground lit appropriately. 

Beyond the organization he talks about how we have the tools at hand to improve light at night through controls, teaching everyone about what they're missing in a post-LED boom world and his own personal encounters with the value of a night sky.

Sponsored by: http://www.rablighting.com/darksky

After a successful run of special releases on Get a Grip on Lighting (https://getagriponlighting.com/) Jane Slade and Michael Colligan have launched a new podcast series about dark sky.

Jane has been writing and speaking about the need for darkness in design for almost exactly five years and Michael has been trying to break into the movement from the distribution side for the past two.

This conversation between the two gets into their histories with the movement, what they believe and how this will inform the new series.

Adding more and bluer light to nights around the world has had numerous unforeseen side effects in wildlife, human health, aesthetics, and other deeper dimensions.

We need to confront this problem we’ve been neglecting, this series will be our part.

Sponsored by Rab Lighting https://www.rablighting.com/darksky

Visit our show’s link tree for audio feeds and social media channels https://linktr.ee/S4Darkness 
Revisit our other dark sky conversations:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsdHE2gsiCv4Q_Wjc1BNpAvvc68KPCXRe