orogenicman

Hi imatfaal. I don't doubt that the skies are a bit darker here than in London. Still, we had to locate our observatory 55 miles away (and in another state) in order to have sufficiently dark skies. I think light pollution is a serious problem for every industrialized country. Unfortunately, most people don't understand how bad it really is. Dekan, I agree that most people aren't interested in astronomy. But then, that has always been true. Having said that, the fact that we have managed to interest over 6,000 people in our programs in just one year says a lot about our efforts to inform the public. So I have to disagree with your conclusion that it is a lost cause.

I am a newbie to the science forum, so hi everyone. I would like to add to this discussion by mentioning that I am a board member of the Louisville astronomical Society (LAS), in Louisville, Kentucky. Recently, our society was honored with Astronomy Magazine's "Out Of This World" Award for 2013. We were given this award for our public outreach efforts in our community and region. I mention this because I disagree that people are not interested in Astronomy. The LAS hosted 96 events last year that attracted 6,053 astronomy enthusiasts, many of which were first-timers. So the interest is certainly there at least in my community. It just takes the efforts of volunteers like our members to get people involved. The effort has been very rewarding for all involved. People don't need to have physical access to space to become interested in astronomy. They just need to have access to dark skies, access to good scopes, and informed members to answer their questions. And that's what we try to give them.