Shooting The Shooters

In early July 2002, I got into a little online discussion about laptops
at star parties, and how I had never been a victim of someone with
a Very Bright Screen while observing.

Inevitably, the very next weekend I got treated to an imager with an
LCD screen turned up to the max, lighting up the end of the
southwest parking lot at Fremont Peak.

The good news is, it was hardly bothersome to me most of the time,
so not a big problem to me personally.
But it was quite an irritant to the nearby observers, and one who
could move his dob without too much trouble elected to
relocate nearer my position.

This so impressed me that I decided it would be fun to try to
take some pictures
of imagers imaging,
in particular our Too Bright friend.

All I'm using is a cheapo sony digital camera (a P30) that is
most definitely not designed to shoot in the dark.
For example, here's a 'reference dark frame' shot while aimed
in the direction of some average observers using a red light on an atlas:

Typical Observers Observing
Obviously, this would bother nobody. Bear in mind, also,
that this shot was "brightened" (in Gimp) more than any other exposure.

There were also other imagers present who were carefully
blocking the light from their computer screens,
and caused no harm.
Still, the proliferation of these devices is clearly presenting
yet another form of light pollution at dark sky sites.

And, of course, it's not just imagers using computers at star parties now.