You never know what you have till it's gone is as true for an astronomer as for anyone else. There was a day when I would have laughed if someone had mentioned that I would have a hard time seeing the Helix nebula or M101 with my my favorite astronomy binoculars. Yet, here I am, with the best astronomy binoculars money can buy and I can't even see nearby M51, let alone M101. Ouch! Forget the Helix. I can't even see M27 without an O-III filter fitted to the eyepiece of my Nikon 10x70. Why? It's all a matter of light pollution. Now, if I could get 3 million people in my neighborhood to turn off their lights for an hour …