Should we take back the night?

Yes, because it is glaring problems...no cut off shield. I used to be a member of the Dark Sky Org. of Arizona for ten years until 2003, I had to stop because the people don’t care and say that we have rights to doing what we want. The glaring means nothing to them.

A problem is the Police who love the light pollution, because it make easy for the police to spotting the crime in "daylight" in the dark area. The Light Pollution that causes the crime problems. Even they use thousand of strobes on their vehicle that would blind you at the night.

Also the zone code enforcer doing lousy job. Maine has three anti light pollution laws but no action. Look at the LURC/Forest building near East Millinocket has glaring light fixture toward to the highway. They supposed to put up that bad glaring light fixture on the pole or the tree and glaring toward to that Building instead of toward to the highway. State owns that building. State breaks their law.

There are too many bad glaring problems around everywhere. For example, the church's sign post lights all night instead of turn it off at 10 PM. They asking for donate the money for the electric bills but why they leave light on all nights.

The power plants know about light pollution but don’t want to fixing it or losing the profits from the light polluters.

Even the vehicles has blue headlight that would blinding you. It should be banned in State of Maine.

We live on the peaceful shores of Lake Sebasticook in Newport. It truly is the way life should be...until our neighbor goes out for the night, which is every night, and turns on her "beacon" lighitng up not only her entire yard, but ours, as well as our bedroom. This neighbor's blinding outside light also impacts the multiple pairs of nesting owls in the area. These lovely creatures don't have the option of putting up "shades" on their nests. We refuse to install shades - the morning sunrise is glorious, and once the neighbor is home and the horrible spot light is off, both Venus and the moon put on a show for free. Why would we put up shades and block nature's glory? There is simply no reason for this neighbor to light up her yard and ours for hours every night, when a motion sensor light would allow us to enjoy a dark night, and light the path to her door.

Your April 5-6, 2008 front page story about "Saving our Night Sky" was very interesting and timely. Timely because we in this part of Maine have a chance through thoughtful application of responsible lighting codes,to save a wonderful part of our outdoor natural heritage. The use of full cut off lighting fixtures, while more expensive up front, will not only direct light down to the ground where anyone would seemingly want it, and allow the owner to use a less energy demanding bulb and save money in the long run.

Considering our Vacationland nickname, its easy to see that a beautiful, star filled night sky can be just another magnet, in addition to our coast, mountains, rivers and lakes, to lure folks from away to Maine. It's a "win win" situation for everyone involved. Check out http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do
for more information on efficient, low power usage lighting.

We should be both pleased and protective of the beauty of the low level of night lighting where we still have it in northern and eastern Maine.
It's not generally known and should be, that the Land Use Regulation Commission, which guides development in most of this region, adopted thoughtful and effective standards for exterior lighting in 2004. These standards permit landowners to place exterior lights that illuminate their private properties yet avoid light pollution to the sky and neighbors. The LURC standards merit consideration for adoption elsewhere.
We also find that motion-sensitive exterior lighting is quite wonderful. It saves energy cost and we think it gives us more security by signaling that an intruder may be present. By drawing attention, motion detection certainly offers a lot more opportunities to view the great creatures that come through the yard.
Shades are readily available to retrofit on any troublesome exterior lights.