Astrophysics Speaker Series
*The event has already taken place on this date: Sat, 02/10/2024
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Taking Back the Night
Our night sky is in crisis as the fastest growing environmental problem, light pollution, turns night into day. Not just a threat to stars, excessive lighting poses a danger to many creatures, including humans. Tim will demonstrate how lighting impacts astronomy and highlight a recent case study of an LED streetlight retrofit in Pepperell, MA, where by following dark-sky lighting best practices, he measured what effect there was on the night sky. The results have significant implications for how we approach future lighting projects and provide a path forward in restoring darkness to our nighttime environment.
Tim Brothers is the Observatory Manager at MIT’s Wallace Astrophysical Observatory and a Technical Instructor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. He also co-founded the Massachusetts chapter of DarkSky International, where he is primarily focused on outdoor lighting policy in the region. Tim was recently awarded a minor planet designation, asteroid (28992) Timbrothers, for his work on asteroid detection.
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