Sir

Your Opinion article “Save starry nights” (Nature 418, 709; 200210.1038/418709b) advocates control of public lighting to prevent a lack of starlight diminishing the quality of city-dwellers' lives. As you point out, someone in Venice can look up and see all the stars in the constellation of Ursa Minor, but this would be impossible for people in most other cities from New York to Sydney.

Reduction of light pollution may, indeed, help New Yorkers to see these stars. People in Sydney, however, will still have to go to a planetarium to see Ursa Minor, as they live in the Southern Hemisphere.