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Brian Mackey: I'm Brian Mackey, and we are live for the rest of the hour. When was the last time you got a really clear view of the night sky? There is an entire universe out there, but artificial lighting has cut us off from it. On any given night, many of us are lucky if we can see much more than the moon. But there are places in Illinois where you can see the night sky, as countless generations of our ancestors did. Joining me now to talk more about this is Michelle Nichols, director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Michelle, welcome back to the 21st Show.

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Michelle Nichols: Thank you so much for having me.

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Brian Mackey: Ken Volchek co-founded Dark Skies Chicago, and he's a board member of the International Dark Sky Organization, which advocates for reducing light pollution. Until recently, he managed the Far Horizons [program] at Adler, and he now owns Nightlight Consulting. Ken, welcome to the 21st Show to you as well.

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Ken Volchek: Yeah, thanks for having me on.

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Brian Mackey: And finally, Chris Schmidt is program chair for the Peoria Astronomical Society. Chris, welcome to you as well.

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Chris Schmidt: Good to be here. Thank you.

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Brian Mackey: We're going to spend the rest of the program on this. You can join us at 800-222-9455. How much of the night sky can you see from where you live? Do you have a favorite stargazing spot? And what do you think of efforts to cut light pollution? 800-222-9455 is the number to join us. 800-222-9455.

All right, Michelle Nichols, Adler Planetarium, I'm going to start with you. Tell me more about some of the highlights of what there is to see in our night sky, especially from here in Illinois.

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Michelle Nichols: So we have a variety of places where folks can go see the night sky in Illinois, and if you were to look up this late this summer and into the fall and early winter, it's — it's, in my opinion, some of the best stuff to see. So we've got the [Perseid] meteor shower, which will peak next week, so the evening of the 12th into the morning of the 13th of August. We've got a partial lunar eclipse coming up on Aug. 27 in the early evening. We've got the Geminid meteor shower in December, the Leonid meteor shower in November. There's a variety of things for you to look up at, and just simply planets. We've got Saturn. [They'll] be up in our fall sky in the early evening starting in about a month or so. We'll have a — start getting a good view of Saturn.

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Brian Mackey: Chris Schmidt with the Peoria Astronomical Society. I — I suspect you interact with a lot of people who've never done dark sky observing before. What kind of reactions do you get when you have somebody seeing the sky so clearly for the first time?

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Chris Schmidt: Well, we operate two observatories. Our Northmoor Observatory is an in-town observatory, and our darker sky observatory is our Jubilee Observatory, which is out by Jubilee College State Park. Peoria — we don't — we get a lot of people who come to the Northmoor Observatory. When the Northmoor Observatory was originally established in 1955, I'd say we had about a [3] sky, which is a dark rural sky. Currently it's a suburban sky, so you can still see things, but you're not going to be able to see the Milky Way.

Really, to get an idea of whether you have a dark sky or not, you want to — you want to know if you look up during July and August, are you able to see the Milky Way? We don't, so at our observatories, we have our members who come to the Jubilee Observatory where you can still see a kind of faint Milky Way. At the Northmoor Observatory, it's not really a dark sky, so we're more introducing people to observational astronomy. There are good places in central Illinois to see a dark sky.

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Brian Mackey: Yeah, let me ask you to pause there because we'll — we'll come back to that and talk about some of those as we proceed through the conversation. Let me bring Ken Volc[h]ek into the conversation, co-founder of Dark Sky Chicago, owner of Nightlight Consulting. Ken, there — there are several different things that go into light pollution. There's glare, sky glow, light trespass, and clutter. Break those down for us.

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Ken Volchek: Yeah, you know, it really comes down to how we actually use light at night and, you know, our personal experience. You've probably had that experience where maybe a neighbor has a light on that's just shining into your backyard, or maybe there's a street light that's shining into your home. You know, that's — that's glare, that's light trespass, and, you know, it causes not only discomfort, but it actually has health impacts, ecological impacts. And that's because the light is not going where it should be. And, you know, nowadays with LED technology, we actually have the tools to solve the problem — it's just using light right. You know, as a dark sky board member and, you know, like I said, the founder of Dark Sky Chicago, we don't advocate for just turning all the lights off. It's about using light responsibly and well.

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Brian Mackey: So what — to say more about the main sources of light pollution.

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Ken Volchek: Well, it's actually an interesting story because you think about if you ask anybody, oh, where do you think all this light pollution comes from — you know, this glow over our cities and, you know, [obscuring] the stars — most people would say, oh, it's probably street lights, right? And we've actually done research — and in fact, other folks have done some research as well — saying, OK, where does all this light come from? And one of the things we found out is that somewhere near about 20% of all light emissions we can see at night are actually from street lights — only about 20%. So, wait a minute, where's the other 80[%]? And, you know, some of the research I did recently with partners at the Adler found that residential lighting is actually the largest single contributor to light pollution. Mainly — but the caveat here is that mainly because there are so many homes. Most of the land we use that's developed is for residential properties. Although commercial properties are — by how big they are, how much area they take up — actually the brightest properties. And you think about that — that's, you know, parking lot lights, facade lighting and advertising lighting and things like that. So all these things together contribute to our loss of the night sky, as well as, you know, disrupting ecosystems and all that.

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Brian Mackey: All right, let's get a phone call in before we go to the break at 800-222-9455. We have Bill calling from Springfield on line one. Bill, thanks for calling in.

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Bill: You're welcome. So several years ago, about maybe 10 miles east of Jacksonville, Illinois, I was able to see, to my sheer delight, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is a couple million light years away, and it looked like it was low on the horizon to the northeast, and it was at arm's length maybe — an index finger long or something. I thought, wow, that is so fantastic. So what I would like to — but yet it was barely, you know, visible really. I'm wondering if dark skies would, you know, make it even more visible.

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Brian Mackey: Bill, thanks for the question. Michelle Nichols, can I direct that one to you? And I should say we need to take a break in about a minute, so I'm going to ask you to be brief with your answer.

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Michelle Nichols: It's — it's a fairly dim object to begin with. It's — it's also — the human eye has some limits to what we can actually pick out, especially with the Andromeda Galaxy. It's dim, it's fuzzy. And so even with extremely dark skies, you're not going to see the big spiral shapes and everything like that that you see in the photos. Those are long-exposure photos that have been processed and everything, so the fact that you saw it at all is amazing. That is awesome. And so I would hang on to that, but significantly darker skies — you're not going to see much more than a fuzzy thing in the sky.

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Brian Mackey: I think he said about a half hour west of Jacksonville — or maybe 10 minutes, I can't remember — but yeah, that is a good dark spot. You look at those dark sky maps, that that part of central Illinois — [Fort Atonia], basically — I guess for those reasons maybe is particularly dark.

We're going to [continue] this conversation after a short break about our disconnect from the night sky because of modern lighting technology and what some people are trying to do about that. We'd love to hear from you. 800-222-9455.

This is The 21st Show. I'm Brian Mackey. We are talking about the night sky, what we can see in it, and more to the point, what so many of us cannot see. And we're talking about why that is, namely light pollution, and where people can go here in the 21st state to gaze at the night sky as our ancestors did — or at least as close as we might be able to get without heading out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean — so we can make the most of those experiences.

Had a caller during the break who mentioned there's a total solar eclipse coming up soon, although NASA says this one — it's Aug. 12 — but it's going to be Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and a small piece of Portugal. Unfortunately, if you didn't make it to one of the two solar eclipses that passed through southern Illinois in the last decade, you've missed out on that here for, I think, a couple of generations.

But my guests today about dark skies are Ken Walz[y]k with Dark Sky Chicago, Michelle Nichols with the Adler Planetarium, and Chris Schmidt with the Peoria Astronomical Society. You can join us, 800-222-9455.

Do you have memories of an all-time great stargazing experience? For me, Death Valley, California, March 2013. You could see the Milky Way. You could see what I thought was L.A. and Las Vegas, but it turned out to be interstellar dust being lit up by the sun as it was setting. It's so dark there. And, you know, beyond that, what do you think of efforts to cut light pollution? 800-222-9455. 800-222-9455.

Ken Volc[h]ek, let me come back to you. Let's talk more about cutting down light pollution. What sort of movement are you seeing on that here in Illinois in the past few years?

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Ken Volchek: Well, actually, I've got to give some praise to Sen. Laura [Ellman], out of Naperville — state senator. One of our Dark Sky Chicago folks was on her campaign trail. She knocked on his door, and he asked, oh, what are you gonna do about light pollution? She's like, hm, what — and [he] got a chance to talk to her about how we can actually make positive changes, improve not only our nighttime environment but also save a lot of energy. And she has, in the intervening few years, really championed the idea. And we, in 2024, were able to help get a bill passed in Illinois that mainly applies to the Department of Natural Resources — says like when they install lighting, they have to be dark sky friendly. And there are real simple ways you can actually do that. And the great thing is, the benefits are not only for the night but, like I said, for energy efficiency and all that. So that was a really wonderful small step we made in 2024.

We've now expanded that, and there's a bill awaiting signature from Gov. Pritzker that is actually going to expand that to stretch codes — Illinois stretch codes. So if you're a city or an area or the state that wants to target energy efficiency and also quality of life and quality of the night skies, you can follow this new — regulations, in a sense, that guide you to doing light right at night.

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Brian Mackey: Ken, I'm going to ask you sort of the — you know, the — I guess the contrarian take on this, right? People hate what's happened to ceiling fans because of energy savings. You hear complaints — people [don't] like compact fluorescent light bulbs. Talk about how, you know, in your view, if you think it is — this is just as good as a nice bright light. I feel safer in my yard. People maybe feel safer walking to their car at night, leaving work, if it's in the dark — having a lot of bright light around. How do you respond to those arguments?

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Ken Volchek: Well, you know, there's actually a lot of studies that have been done on the impact of, for example, lighting at night and safety and crime. And guess what — over about 40 or 50 years of studies, there's been no direct correlation found between how bright your street is, for example, and how much crime there is, or safety connected to lighting. So you could look at the way that the facts lay out, but then guess what? There's also perception, and you're right. I would never doubt anyone or deny anyone the feeling that, hey, you know what, I feel like this is a safer place because there's more light.

But here's the trick — if you have a light, for example, shining in your eyes, that blinds you. Your night vision is gone, which means you can't see into shadows, you can't see — it creates a high-contrast environment. So imagine if that light — I kind of mentioned earlier about maybe a street light that shines into the adjoining building. Well, it's supposed to be lighting the street, and that we want. So why is it lighting the building? Imagine if you just use the technology at hand and put that light in the right place. If it's only lighting up the street, not your eyes and blinding you to the glare, it's actually going to be an even safer environment. So that's my pitch — is that if we do light just smart, it'll actually be a safer environment.

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Brian Mackey: That's a fair point. You're reminding me — I read in a book about Sparta, ancient Spartans, many years ago, that when their soldiers were in training, they were not allowed to use torches at night because they were supposed to learn to adapt to the dark and to work — be able to operate without any sort of artificial light helping them out. That's a good point.

So let me — and one other fact check on myself, thanks to quick work by our producer Jose — the next total solar eclipse in Illinois is going to be Aug. 23, 2044. So maybe not multiple generations, but, you know, one generation from now.

Michelle, let me come back to you, Michelle Nichols with the Adler Planetarium. Talk about what light pollution has done to our night sky, because for, I think, a lot of people listening now, maybe they don't remember or never have known what the night sky can look like.

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Michelle Nichols: It's really interesting that you put it like that. Most people don't have any idea what a dark night sky actually looks like because light pollution is so pervasive on this planet. The vast, vast majority — an extremely high percentage of the population of the world, but especially of the United States — is under some form of light pollution. And so it's hard for people to appreciate what they're missing if they've never seen it. And so it's something that we want to make sure that people understand — if you want to go out and see a dark sky, to be able to experience it, you have to travel a little far in order to do that because of the vast amount of light pollution that we have now.

Is the sky utterly hopeless? No. We definitely can still see the brighter things — the moon, the planets, a handful of other objects in the sky — but the ability to see dim stars and the Milky Way and all that is absolutely gone for most of the folks who might be listening to this program right now. And so it's a significant problem, and getting worse every year.

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Brian Mackey: It really is striking when you do have that experience for the first time in life. I think for me it was probably Boy Scout camp up in rural Michigan. You know, for some people it might have a religious valence. I grew up on Star Trek. It certainly resonated with what I had in my imagination. It really is awe-inspiring in the dictionary sense of that word.

[Chris] Schmidt from the Peoria Astronomical Society, we've been talking about sort of the human appreciation of the night sky aspect of light pollution, but it also has effects on the environment. Can you talk about that?

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Chris Schmidt: Yeah, actually, if you think about it, all wildlife and plants have evolved in a 24-hour cycle of light and dark, and as a result, we have systems built in. Human beings, wildlife — we think of mammals, but also insects, birds respond to light-dark cycles, and artificial light at night disrupts those cycles.

One of the things that kind of brings it home to me is seeing lightning bugs when I was growing up. It turns out they are very sensitive to the ambient light at night. They need dark skies so that their mating signals can — you know, they can signal each other and perpetuate the species. Lightning bugs spend most of their life cycle underground as larvae. When they come out, they are all about partying and getting together, and it's only a two-week period. So this is a crucial two weeks for the species. And if your house is lighted, if there's a lot of light in the sky, it drowns out their signals. So if you want fireflies and lightning bugs in your backyard, turn off your house lights from 8 p.m. to midnight during the summer months. Just makes it a lot easier for them to do what they need to do.

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Brian Mackey: Today I learned — that is great advice. And I just want to shout out Sonia in Decatur, who called in to make that very point about lightning bugs. For the sake of time, we're not going to take that call because we just covered that territory, but I appreciate her calling in, and I appreciate you making that point.

Let me also share an email from John in Lawrenceville. "Great show on the dark skies of Illinois and beyond. My best viewing of 6th-magnitude skies with the Milky Way being like a white river of light, and more, occurred in the UP of Michigan — the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — a few years ago. I feel sad for those who've been there recently with the Canadian wildfires obscuring the [sight]."

Just a few minutes left in our time together. Ken Volc[h]ek, let me come back to you. If someone's hearing this and they're wondering what else they can do — other than what we just heard from Chris about turning off your lights for a certain time in the evening to help the lightning bugs — what else can someone do to cut down on their own sort of light pollution? I almost said footprint, but that's a terrible mixing of metaphors. So — sky print — what would you tell them?

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Ken Volchek: Yeah, you know, that's a great point. You know, it always starts at home. That's the easiest thing for anyone to do. Just be cognizant of your nighttime environment. So, for example, if you have lighting in your backyard — like Chris was saying — or at your home, there's actually really good guidance if you go to darksky.org, which is the website for Dark Sky International. Look for the — there's a home assessment you can do, and it actually kind of walks you through like, oh, take a look at each light and see if it conforms to dark sky standards. Because you think about if you have a light outside, you have a choice. You could put some glaring — like the, uh, light [bulb] that, you know, shines into your neighbor's yard — or you could simply look for a fixture that does the lighting right and actually provides you exactly what you need. So, yeah, like I said, I think you're right — good lighting choices start at home. And then also, you know, talk to your neighbors. Say, hey, look, what do you think about our lighting? And then if you change it, maybe they'll be inspired to do the same.

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Brian Mackey: I love that you can either choose to have the sort of Taylor Swift concert look in your backyard, or you can actually get in touch with nature again.

Ken Volchek co-founded Dark Sky Chicago. He's a board member of the International Dark Sky Organization and he owns Nightlight Consulting. Michelle Nichols is director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium, and Chris Schmidt is program chair for the Peoria Astronomical Society. Chris, Michelle, Ken — thanks so much for being with us and talking with us about the dark sky. Good observing to all of you in the months ahead.

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Ken Volchek: Thank you. Thank you.

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Brian Mackey: That is all the time we have for our program today and this week. Coming up on Monday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is seeking a 3rd term this fall. We'll talk with him about his nearly 8 years on the job so far and why he's asking you to give him another 4. We're actually taping that conversation in studio this afternoon, Thursday afternoon here in [Urbana], so we are not going to be able to take calls for that. If you have a last-minute question you want to send in, don't hesitate — just about 2 hours until he arrives. talk@21stshow.org is our email address. Again, talk@21stshow.org. Whether it's a question for the governor, comments on our past shows, [or a] suggestion for future stories, we love hearing from you. We read every message that comes in.

Again, you can find our email address, our voicemail line, podcasts, social media — it's all on our website, 21stshow.org. That's 21stshow.org.

The 21st Show is produced by Christine Hatfield and Jose [Zarate]. Our digital producer is [Kulsoom] Khan. Technical direction and engineering comes from Jason Croft and Steve [Morck]. Reginald Hardwick is our news director. Thank you to the band Public Access for our theme music. The 21st Show is a production of Illinois Public Media. I'm Brian Mackey.