Stunning Timelapses Showing How Night Skies Are Affected by Light Pollution Across the United States

In 2016, filmmaker Sriram Murali, who specializes in night sky photography and is involved with the International Dark-Sky Association, created “Lost in Light“, a stunning and informative timelapse over the state of California that shows how each area is affected by light pollution.

Lost in Light, a short film on how light pollution affects the view of the night skies. Shot mostly in California, the movie shows how the view gets progressively better as you move away from the lights. …in reality, most of us live under heavily light polluted skies and some have never even seen the Milky Way. We take the skies for granted and are rather lost in our busy lives without much care for the view of the stars.

In 2017, Murali followed up his first film with “Lost in Light II“, an equally stunning and informative timelapse of the nighttime skies across the United States measuring how well the constellations could be viewed from different areas.

Lost in Light II is a short film showing how light pollution affects the view of the night skies using one of the most prominent constellations – The Orion. …One thing I realized from my last film was that people were able to relate to the difference between the light pollution levels but not the Milky Way itself. The Milky Way appears more colorful to a camera than it does to our eyes and most people haven’t seen it. But, the Orion is a more common sight. It’s a great subject to help explain light pollution.