Light pollution makes me sad

I recently took a bunch of long-exposure photos of the Cassiopeia constellation area of the sky from my backyard, then stacked and aligned them in GIMP (free-photoshop clone) to see what stars show up that are there but hidden because of light pollution.

This is what you see when you look at the constellation Cassiopeia from my suburban city on a clear, moonless night:

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Click to make it bigger (worth it)

This is what you might see if Central Iowa had a huge power outage on a clear, moonless, night:

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Click to make it bigger (worth it)

Please, turn your outdoor lights down at night when you don’t need them.

Think you still need them? Maybe you should re-evaluate why you think so.

To contrast, this is a single 10s exposure of the same region of sky in north Ames, on a semi-cloudy night. Ames has less light pollution:

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Click to make it bigger (worth it)

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