INTRODUCTION: BRIGHT LIGHTS

When I was young, I lived within a cluster of largish cities. More than half a century ago, lights were dim, skies still dark. From my back yard, I could easily see the Milky Way and stars as faint as my vision would allow. But the lights have had their way, and now seem almost too far gone to stop. They illuminate our towns, and are at times spectacularly pretty as they light big city buildings. But there are always tradeoffs, downsides, to everything. We have light to guide our way many times over, but we've lost the sky which we once could so easily love and admire. I can no longer see the Milky Way — the fabled path of ghostly light that is the combined radiance of the stars of our disk-shaped Galaxy — from my home in a small city. And of course it is in and near the cities where most of us live and work. So the sky appears obscured, leaving us unable to gaze at our awesome Universe.