Tereza Plutalova reports via Space.com: Light pollution is a growing threat to astronomy, but new street lighting technology could restore clear views of the night sky. […] the study Published earlier this year It turns out that stars disappear from the sky at an average rate of 10% per year. This trend affects even the world’s most remote observatories. Germany-based startup StealthTransit recently tested a solution to this growing problem. “Unfortunately, this problem currently plagues nearly every observatory,” StealthTransit founder and CEO Vlad Pashkovsky told Space.com in an email. “Modern telescopes are so sensitive that they can feel the effects of outdoor lighting in cities 50 or even 200 kilometers away. [30 to 120 miles]. This means that virtually every observatory on Earth already needs, or will need in the next decade, protection from metropolitan light. ”
StealthTransit’s solution consists of a simple device that flashes an LED light at a very high frequency that is imperceptible to the human eye, a GPS receiver, and a specially designed shutter on the telescope’s camera that can flash in sync with the LED light. It relies on three components. . GPS technology guides the telescope’s shutters to open only briefly when the LED lights are turned off. The experiment, conducted at an observatory in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains, showed that the technology, dubbed DarkSkyProtector, Unwanted sky glow in astronomical images can be reduced by 94%. “I would say the telescope was looking at a mostly dark sky at this point,” Paszkowski said. “The key to our technology is to make all types of lighting suitable for astronomy, including outdoor advertising and indoor lighting in apartments, offices, and stores.”
This technique could filter out light not only from around the observatory itself, but also from nearby towns and villages. Although it may seem unrealistic to install flashing lamp devices all over a town, Paszkowski said most existing LED lights can operate in flashing mode and are specifically designed with air protection in mind. The new lamps are no more expensive than existing LED technology, he said. . The most expensive element of the DarkSkyProtector system is the telescope shutter, which must be lightweight and agile enough to blink about 150 times per second. StealthTransit tested the prototype shutter on a 24-inch (60-centimeter) wide telescope and hopes to make the technology available for larger telescopes. Pashkowski said StealthTransit’s technology is not yet ready for commercial use, but the company hopes to have a product compatible with the world’s best telescopes within five to seven years.
