Lembit Opik MP

Lembit Öpik was born into astronomy. His Estonian grandfather, Ernst Julius Öpik, was a professional astronomer all his life, and pioneered much of the early work on the threat of cometary and asteroid impacts on earth. As a result, Lembit has been stargazing all his life, and as an MP, led a debate on the dangers of near earth objects (NEOs) in Parliament in 1999. He persuaded the Government to commission a report, which confirmed the real and present danger NEOs present, and continues to campaign for action on an international basis to avert a catastrophic impact in the future.

Mike Simpson

Mike has worked in the Lighting Profession for the past 28 years and is the Technical and Design Director at Philips Lighting UK. He has experience in both product development and application for several European manufacturers, with a particular focus on the use of light in the outdoor environment. He is a past president of both the Institution of Lighting Engineers and the Society of Light and Lighting in the UK. In the UK he was involved in the preparation of national lighting standards and guides for roadlighting, urban lighting and sportslighting and was given a comendation from the Campaign for Dark Skies Over the past 15 years, he has lectured on the MSc in Light and Architecture at University College, London and helped introduce an outdoor lighting module on the BA in Lighting Design at Rose Bruford, Kent

Chris Baddiley BSc, PhD, DIC, M.Inst.P, FRAS

Chris received his Doctorate from Imperial College on Infrared instrumentation. He has worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh on a multi object spectrograph, the Astronomy Dept at the University of Manchester and as a senior scientist for the MoD infrared camera for the US TSX BMDO research satellite. His pastimes include public lectures on astronomy, astrophysics, relativity and cosmology, and giving evening class courses. He is a committee member of the British Astronomical Association's Campaign for Dark Skies, often speaking on light pollution issues. He has written a mathematical model of skyglow that can be linked to industry standard luminaire photometry data, for comparing pollution from different designs.

Philip Perkins - (www.astrocruise.com)

Philip is one of astronomy's foremost astro-photographers as a visit to his website will confirm. With illustrations from many of his superb images, Philip will show the beauty of dark skies and compare the results from polluted skies. He will present his techniques for astrophotography and for avoiding the worst effects of light pollution. His equipment consists of: AP 900 GTO Mount, AP 155 EDF refractor, RC Optical Systems 12.5" f/9 Ritchey-Chretien, Nikon 300mm f/2.8 and 400mm f/3.5 lenses, SBIG ST-8E, SBIG ST-4, and Pentax 6x7 cameras.

Dr. Paul Marchant

Paul is a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society. He initially studied physics and astrophysics, which led him into statistics. He subsequently studied this fascinating subject in its own right obtaining an MSc. He works in research at Leeds Metropolitan University across a range of areas and has taken an interest in 'what works' against crime and in evidence based policy more generally. He is disconcerted by the widespread poor grasp of statistical reasoning, especially amongst those who should know better.
He is concerned about the wide and varied negative environmental impacts of exterior lighting. His investigations show that the claims made for some benefits of lighting are questionable, in particular the claim that lighting reduces crime.

Friedel Pas

As an amateur astronomer, Friedel Pas discovered that light pollution can be avoided by better design without losing good visibility and security. He is a firm believer that light pollution not only has a bad effects on astronomy, but also on energy costs , the environment and human health. From that moment on he started working on the problems of light pollution in the Werkgroep Lichthinder of the VVS (a workgroup in the Flemish Astronomical Association). He realised that before politicians act, the public need to be aware and sympathetic to the problem. To bring this message home, they held a Night of Darkness where half of the Flemish municipalities switched off a part of their outdoor lighting. At the same time, 150 local activities were organized for more then 25.000 visitors. Friedel became coördinator of these actions and took up the PR role for the group, which is continuing its work.

Wim Schmidt

Since five years Wim Schmidt, educated as psychologist, has dedicated his working life totally to light pollution in the Netherlands. He is chairman of the Dutch Association and has a little bureau which does investigations and gives advice in respect to light pollution for the Dutch government, locally and at the national level.
He has just completed a work on the situation on light and darkness in the Veluwe, a large national park in the centre of Holland.

Alexandra Pollard

How does artificial lighting affect the European Robin, Erithacus rubecula? It is well known that Britain’s favourite bird, the robin, sings at night under artificial lighting. Under normal conditions, the robin is one of the first birds to begin to sing and forage, and this can be at least partially explained by this species large eye and pupil diameter in relation to its size. Robins have been seen to forage under streetlights at night, which is likely to affect the normal body mass cycle. This may also have consequences on chicks during the breeding season, as parents may be able to provide round-the-clock food. A comparison between artificially lit and dark areas will be presented using differences in foraging behaviour, body mass regulation, singing routines and breeding success. The results of experimentally illuminating dark territories will be presented.

Tom Webster

Tom Webster is an Incorporated Engineer and Member of the Institution of Lighting Engineers. He has been involved in the lighting industry more years than he wants to mention and in that time has undertaken a variety of roles including lighting designer and trainer. In the last 8 years he has become increasingly involved with the police on the issues surround lighting and crime reduction and during this time has come to realise that these issues are not at odds with his other passion, dark skies. In his paper, Tom will seek to reconcile these two apparently opposing interests.

Martin Morgan Taylor LL.B. LL.M. F.R.A.S. I.L.T.M.

Martin is a specialist academic lawyer who writes on light pollution, nuisance and the law at DeMontfort University, Leicester.