Animals, plants and people are harmed when the nights get lighter and brighter. While smaller municipalities switch off their lights completely at night, this is not an option for a large city. How Munich tries to avoid stray light – and to give the starry sky a stage again.
If you want to admire the starry sky over the city on a cloudless night, you will have a hard time. Munich shines – and it’s too bright. 100,000 street and path lights shine in competition, plus 1,500 high-pressure lamps along the Mittlerer Ring alone. Not to forget the more than one hundred historical monuments that are so beautiful that they should also shine in the dark. The Milky Way at the top of Munich has not been visible to the naked eye for a long time. Again and again there are approaches and initiatives to reduce the so-called light pollution in the city. Because the consequences for the environment and people are well known.