How many stars are in the sky

N.N.Samus, "Starry" swindle. Novaya Gazeta, "Centaurus" Supplement No.9, 2008

"Recently, Vladimir Surdin, the Moscow astronomer and famous science popularizer asked the group of children in a school, how many stars one can see on the sky with the naked eye? True answer is known: about 6000 stars, half of them above the horizon and half below it. There are two or three widely-read children who knew the answer. But the majority think that one can descern with the naked eye only dozen stars, at least hundred ones. And this was true answer, too, because it is hard to see even the moon from a big city filled by light, what to say about faint stars, clusters, nebulae and comets".

Sources of night sky pollution in SAO

Figure 14. Powerful double and unprotected mercury glow-discharge lamp was installed in 2008 January 22 on the wall of home No.4, the observatory hostel of SAO. It illuminates the sky and all around except the entrance steps, the thing which it designed for. Later, such a lamp was installed at the door to SAO office, and its light is scattered in the extended area.

Figure 15. Design lighting of the walls of SAO Informatics Department buildings, using powerful glow-discharge lamps. Light of lamps installed on the backside walls of building is seen on the leaves of trees. 6 lamps are used for the lighting of the building. Is this light utilisation for the purposes of security true if there are chip devices of night seing in SAO? Or Nizhnyj Arkhys is prepared to be the most illuminated country in the world?

Figure 16. Strong mercury glow-discharge lamps in the observatory garages.

Figure 17. Scattering of astronomers' village lights on the higher clouds.

Figure 18. The reflected light of the astronomers' village on the Mitseshta mountain range located on the opposite bank of river Zelenchuk in Arkhyz gorge.

Night sky spectrum of the Special Astrophysical Observatory.
Observations of relative intensities of HgI and NaI emission lines
Characteristics of interference due to light pollution at the SAO observational sight.
Light pollution sources-1.
Light pollution sources-2.
Results and conclusions.
Continued. Monitoring the situation.