Never realized how much light pollution messes with astrophotography until I saw a comparison of shots from 2015 vs 2023 in my town

I was scrolling through the "Before and After" thread on here last night, and someone posted side by side photos of the Orion Nebula taken from the same spot outside of Denver. The 2015 one was crisp with clear nebula detail, the 2023 one was washed out orange-gray. I knew light pollution was getting worse but I didn't think it'd be that drastic in just 8 years. The OP said they checked data from a local dark sky group and our area's sky brightness increased by about 12 percent since 2018. Makes me wonder if I should just drive 2 hours out to the national grassland for my next session or if there's any filter setups that actually help this much.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_robert1mo ago

8 years isn't that drastic. Could be more about local development or bad sensor calibration.

hugo_gonzalez681mo ago

8 years isn't that drastic"? Man, you gotta be kidding me. Where I live we haven't seen a temperature swing like that in over a century. If a sensor was off by that much for 8 years someone should have noticed it way before now. Local development could warm things up a bit but not by 8 degrees. That is a huge jump and it screams something deeper going on. I am honestly shocked anyone would brush that off as no big deal.