Possible Light Pollution Solutions in Singapore.

[torgammah]

Hi everyone,
I've been thinking a lot lately about light pollution in Singapore and how it affects our ability to enjoy the night sky. While we're fortunate to live in a vibrant city, the excessive lighting makes it challenging to observe fainter celestial objects.
I wanted to start a discussion about potential solutions that we, as astronomy enthusiasts, could explore or advocate for. Here are a few ideas I had:
* **Promoting responsible lighting practices:** Encouraging the use of shielded lights that direct light downwards, reducing glare and skyglow. This could involve educating businesses and residents about the benefits of such lighting.
* **Supporting initiatives for dark sky preserves:** While creating a designated dark sky preserve within Singapore might be difficult, we could potentially collaborate with neighboring countries to establish one in a less light-polluted area.
* **Raising awareness through outreach programs:** Organizing public stargazing events and educational workshops to demonstrate the impact of light pollution and promote responsible lighting practices.
* **Exploring technology for light pollution filters:** Discussing and testing different light pollution filters available for telescopes and binoculars to mitigate the effects of artificial light.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts and suggestions. What other solutions do you think are feasible? What actions can we take individually and collectively to reduce light pollution and improve our stargazing experiences in Singapore? Let's brainstorm and see if we can make a positive impact!
Clear skies!.

[Hardwarezone]

Hi everyone,
I've been thinking a lot lately about light pollution in Singapore and how it affects our ability to enjoy the night sky. While we're fortunate to live in a vibrant city, the excessive lighting makes it challenging to observe fainter celestial objects.
I wanted to start a discussion about potential solutions that we, as astronomy enthusiasts, could explore or advocate for. Here are a few ideas I had:
* **Promoting responsible lighting practices:** Encouraging the use of shielded lights that direct light downwards, reducing glare and skyglow. This could involve educating businesses and residents about the benefits of such lighting.
* **Supporting initiatives for dark sky preserves:** While creating a designated dark sky preserve within Singapore might be difficult, we could potentially collaborate with neighboring countries to establish one in a less light-polluted area.
* **Raising awareness through outreach programs:** Organizing public stargazing events and educational workshops to demonstrate the impact of light pollution and promote responsible lighting practices.
* **Exploring technology for light pollution filters:** Discussing and testing different light pollution filters available for telescopes and binoculars to mitigate the effects of artificial light.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts and suggestions. What other solutions do you think are feasible? What actions can we take individually and collectively to reduce light pollution and improve our stargazing experiences in Singapore? Let's brainstorm and see if we can make a positive impact!
Clear skies!.

Money and power speaks on this land. The biggest emitters of noise, air pollution , light pollution are powerful organizations that can justify themselves by economic output or security reasons.

I mean , how do you even try to convince jurong island to tone down their brightness ?
Because you have hundred over friends who want to use telescope better for 20 hours a year ? What is the economic output of such activity ? You must be prepared for such harsh counter-argument or 1-liner checkmate when making a proposal or demand.

There are lightshows for tourism purpose down to lighting up all the neighbourhood bicycle tracks and staircase for safety. How do you expect other organizations to change for you ?
For bicycle tracks I don't think downward shielding is as big of a deal since it still reflect off a big flat ground surface.
Trying to convince small business or residents would require a sustained effort , once you relax everybody forget and rubberband back to old ways. Nobody wants to put in this effort. I think any additional big emitter on industrial scale or stadium light would outweigh any positive effort by changing thousands of smaller lampost or lightbulb.

Neighbouring countries are even more desperate for money to survive. Nobody is stopping the enthusiast from traveling further into darker area. Not everybody's interest is aligned together and it can cause friction with the rural locals if they are restricted from lights or having to change their lifestyle for the benefit of visiting foreigner's leisure. Crude analogy is "don't bring the cow home if you want to drink milk".

Events based on this topic is hard to draw crowd. Hardly anybody outside of the hobby care about it outside their busy schedule. Making the public physically attend is very different from reading a 5 minute internet article.
Channel 8 TV documentary tried to link it up with potential health effects by affecting the circadian rhythm or sleep cycle. I can counter-argue that bedroom curtains make it a non-issue.
When moving a step lower and claim it affect animals , it doesn't generate money or existential threat to human therefor general public doesn't care.

In summary it's not what we think or want. It's from the public's perspective when they 99.99% don't use telescope.
In life we cannot have it all , the convenience of a compact city while not having the side effects of pollution. Those racing enthusiast just go Malaysia when they want to speed. Drone hobbyist look on the map almost entire SG is no-fly-zone.
Activist efforts should be better focused on existential threats like urban heat effect.

[bernardchew]

I’m sort of resigned that to properly enjoy this hobby and be able to observe or photograph anything other than planets, one would have to travel to regional countries with more predictable weather conditions and consistently clear skies. Perth, WA springs to mind. Australia grants 90-day tourist visas to Singaporeans, so that would seem like the ideal location. Anyone knows or have experience with other locations close by, eg in China outside of major cities?