Local Light Pollution
In the 12 years I have lived in Leesburg, my once reasonably dark skies have brightened appreciably, first from the construction of 300+ houses in place of the meadows that could be found at the other end of my cul-de-sac, then from the construction of the Leesburg Premium Outlet Mall barely a mile from my door. However, this latest lighting atrocity basically puts a stop to my ability to observe from home whenever these lights are active.
Latest light pollution lunacy
On some of the few nights that I've been able to get out and observe this winter, I have intermittently noticed four rotating searchlights-- like some wannabe Hollywood movie premier or a pallid recreation of the London Blitz. I chalked it up initially to some grand retail opening gala or car dealership sale, but it has persisted for several months now. The first few times I saw the lighting the atmosphere was somewhat hazy, and I attributed some of the extent of the extreme light intrusion to this, but tonight the transparency was decent-- and the rotating searchlights still covered my skies nearly horizon to horizon when the beams were facing me! The lights rotate in a circle and oscillate, causing at least one of the four beams to traverse my local zenith every few seconds.
In disgust last night I put away my scope and hopped in my car to tracked the culprit down. It turns out to be "Vintage 50" -- a recently opened wine bar/brewery/restaurant fully two miles away from me by road or 1.5 miles away in terms of the distance the light travels to me. At least on Friday nights-- and possibly on Saturdays-- they have hired the "Baltimore Searchlight Company" to position a truck in their parking lot to fill the Leesburg sky with light. I will ask the management if this is a temporary promotional campaign or a permanent thing. However, given the way the "Citizens for Property Rights" landowner/development coalition foiled efforts to get even a modest light trespass ordinance enacted in Loudoun County several years ago, I am not optimistic about my chances of curbing this by appealing to local government if the bar's management intends to keep the lighting indefinitely. Since the site is located near the flight path into our municipal general aviation airport, perhaps I'll have more luck trying the FAA-- but I doubt it.
Here are two shots of the lights. (Sorry for the graininess-- these are at speed ISO 1600 to keep exposure time short enough to capture the individual beams in mid-rotation.) The light doesn't show to full effect in these photos; in person it is bad enough to make it essentially useless to do anything beyond looking at the moon on a night when these searchlights are in operation. The net effect is to render it useless for me to observe when they are illuminated. Since Friday nights are one of my prime viewing windows, this may in practice cut my observing time by 90% or more.
UPDATE: The restaurant's management informed me that they planned to continue to run the spotlights on Friday nights through March, and then on 'special occasions'. My first reaction was "OK, only three more nights -- I can live with this." My second gave me reason to continue pursuing the matter, since who knows what constitutes a 'special occasion' that will bring out the lights again, how many there are likely to be, and when. I therefore decided to investigate further. I found that the zoning ordinance for my town (Leesburg, VA) does in fact explicitly address outdoor lighting some detail. Sec. 12.11 C of our Ordinance says:
"All outdoor lighting fixtures shall be designed, fully shielded, downward pointing, aimed, located, and maintained to shield adjacent properties and to not produce glare onto adjacent properties or roadways."
Hmmm, seemed simple enough, as long as you make the assumption that what does for adjacent properties also applies to more distant ones (in my case, nearly two miles away!). I therefore wrote to the head of our zoning commission, laying out the situation. Never heard ANYTHING back, and between travel and poor weather didn't get a chance to see if the lights were used for the rest of March or not. So I'm not sure that the situation was resolved, nor that the town bureaucracy took note of my complaint.
NOVEMBER 2007 UPDATE: they're at it again, and on foggy nights the display is even more egregious. Coming home from work one night I was able to see the lights from the Dulles Greenway in Ashburn-- that's approximately 10 miles away from the site! Hmm, >5mw green lasers are illegal, but it's OK to shine this kind of multi-million candlepower illumination from a site that is not only near a fairly busy municipal airport, but also on the approaches to a major international one (Dulles)??!! To cite one of my favorite quotes, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".