Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[demographic]

Old Defender owners are a pretty unique type over all

In a similar vein though, there are a few industrial applications which take advantage of the same thing. Quarries and the like, fully lorries go down, empty ones go up, never have to charge! Like a Funicular

Can't remember where it is but theres a quarry up a mountain where they actually gain electricity from their quarry trucks cos they carry a load down the hill and drive back up empty.

I assume they do a vehicle to grid (or vehicle to canteen?) charging so its not overcharged.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I don't think there's any system in place yet to allow vehicle to grid charging in the UK, but that might just be a limitation placed on regular folk like you and me.

Local 'vehicle to load' is a thing though, powering homes or fridges or tea urns or whatever. Trains feed back into their power grid all the time though, so prevision must exist.

Several of my old colleagues work for these guys now. They make industrial electricity storage systems based on very high performance flywheels. Shipping containers etc. which act like a big 'battery' basically.

https://punchflybrid.com

Lots of EVs support V2L and V2G now, as you'll probably not be surprised to hear it's the infrastructure which is behind.

[ZRX61]

You've got a bit more 'off-grid' space over there.

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

[Count Steer]

You've got a bit more 'off-grid' space over there.

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

There's an awful lot of dark space on the map.

[Mr. Dazzle]

You've got a bit more 'off-grid' space over there.

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

There's an awful lot of dark space on the map.

That's the ocean fella.

[Count Steer]

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

There's an awful lot of dark space on the map.

That's the ocean fella.

Not the bit that's in North America it ain't.

[cheb]

That's where the preppers have their underground bunkers.

[demographic]

That's where the preppers have their underground bunkers.

Ha, thats what THEY want you to think

[cheb]

Don't you accuse me of thinking, I'm not one of your book learned intellectuals.

[Count Steer]

I can sit for hours looking at those photos, and then overlaying an actual map over it.

I have no idea how they are produced though, are they literally satellite images, or are they representative, or something else?

I got it from here...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _night.jpg

It explains that it's a composite. (I just googled something like 'USA at night satellite').

[Yambo]

I got it from here...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _night.jpg

It explains that it's a composite. (I just googled something like 'USA at night satellite').

There's so much light pollution nowadays in a lot of the world that for astronomers this sort of map is essential:

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

There are a couple of others https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html, https://www.darkskydiscovery.org.uk/dar ... s/map.html but they all do the same thing of giving you the Bortle Scale measure of your local sky. There's no substitute for a really dark sky for astronomy.

[Count Steer]

I can sit for hours looking at those photos, and then overlaying an actual map over it.

I have no idea how they are produced though, are they literally satellite images, or are they representative, or something else?

I got it from here...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _night.jpg

It explains that it's a composite. (I just googled something like 'USA at night satellite').

The one in the link is slightly different than the one you posted though.
I noticed because I was looking at the Bahamas islands and you can't see them in the one in the link, but you can in the one you posted.

I wanted to zoom in because it doesn't seem to be accurate.

Ah. Soz. I know it was a wikimedia image and if you Google 'u.s. at night from space wikimedia' and look at 'images' there are several.

I think I just picked a non-licenseable one.

[Mr. Dazzle]

They turned down the graphics resolution to make it go faster.

[ZRX61]

During an op once I found myself out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, miles (probably 50+) from any settlement and basically just hanging around, I was laying flat on my back looking up at the stars and I was genuinely in awe, I've never seen stars like that without light pollution, it was incredible.

That's the kinda view we get out here in the Mojave Desert.

[Noggin]

There's so much light pollution nowadays in a lot of the world that for astronomers this sort of map is essential:

During an op once I found myself out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, miles (probably 50+) from any settlement and basically just hanging around, I was laying flat on my back looking up at the stars and I was genuinely in awe, I've never seen stars like that without light pollution, it was incredible.

It's the other reason I want to get to be able to walk up hte mountain on skis. Firstly to do that for New Year's Eve (as long as the skies are clear!!) but secondly so I can do it to go and see the stars. Almost certainly not going to be as dark as where you were, but should be pretty good! Just need a very good head torch for the ski back down

[Count Steer]

During an op once I found myself out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, miles (probably 50+) from any settlement and basically just hanging around, I was laying flat on my back looking up at the stars and I was genuinely in awe, I've never seen stars like that without light pollution, it was incredible.

That's the kinda view we get out here in the Mojave Desert.

Once you've seen the sky at night in an area that has no light pollution (and pref none of the other sort) the sky anywhere else is a bit disappointing. Most people in the UK will never see it but when you do.... It requires a bit of a mental reset.

[Horse]

We were in S Wales when Halle Bop was visible. Walked down the lane away from the farmhouse. Superb view.

Then, after a few minutes turning around and getting disorientated, it was so dark we struggled to get back

Other places with excellent skies were in S Devon, a few miles in from the coast, and in the Dordogne.

Only 'desert' experience was Dubai. They use a lot of electricity there ...

[Count Steer]

Yeah it was nuts, indescribable really.

You can always take the (iirc) Peter Cook approach. 'I stared up in this indescribable firmament and realised.......how insignificant it was'. (I paraphrase).

I remember someone writing about standing in the Surrey Hills at night and all they got was the glow from Dorking, Horsham, Reigate etc and the usual bright stars. The thing that gets me when you see it without all the crap is, there's no focus it's all just depth!

[Yambo]

Back in July I took part in an astronomy outreach event here in Turkey.

It happened at around 7,000 ft altitude on Sandras Mountain, about a 3 hour drive for me. Skies there are Bortle 2 compared to the local Bortle 4/4.5 and the seeing was phenomenal. Better than the Okavanga Delta in Botswana last year which was really dark but not as good as at Gorak Shep.

I think the best, darkest skies I've been under was on the East coast of Oman but that was about 53 years ago and I had no telescope with me just a pair of army issue binoculars. I want to go to Namibia in the next couple of years and I'd like to take my scope/camera equipment for the dark skies but not sure how I'd be powering it all. Maybe the safari vehicles will be EVs.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I couldn't believe how many stars there were and how there wasn't a single patch of sky not occupied by a star

Ooooh....Olbers' paradox. Now there's some deep questions.