By Ryan Haarer | KVOA
Rosemont Copper’s proposed mining site would operate all night long. Heavy machinery calls for safety, and at night safety means light, and a lot of it. It’s a concern brought to the attention of observatories in Southern Arizona who are working with Rosemont and the Forest Service to limit the glow as much as possible.
“You can imagine when the moon is up you see many fewer stars. That’s what happens when you add light to the sky,” explains Dr. Emilio Falco at the Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins.
When light is added to the sky distant objects become faint, and they are often galaxies astronomers and stargazers are most interested in. For many big observatories the color of the light plays a big role as well. Gamma ray telescopes work by detecting blue light in the atmosphere. More light makes it more difficult to detect the blue. Rosemont Copper brought on Monrad Engineering to mitigate that problem.
