Light pollution is an increasing problem not only for the wildlife, human and of course astronomers!
In this photo we wanted to show the light pollution difference between the location where we took this image under a sky teaming with stars at a Bortle Scale of 4.5 just a few tens of miles outside the city of Erbil, and the glowing sky of Bortle 6.5 in the far horizon towards the towns of Masif (permam) and the growing town of Shaqlawa in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Luckily the decent dark sky is still easily accessible just a 20-30 minutes drive from the city center, however the city is gradually becoming overpopulated and construction is rapidly stretching in all direction! We fear we lose this privilege in the few years to come!

Canon D 40 (modified)
Canon EFs 18 - 200 mm
HOYA 58 mm on lens night sky filter
Fixed tripod
Remote shutter

Single frame; 10 seconds ISO 800
Processed and edited in Raw Therapee 5.1