Seeing pink night skies in Quebec's Eastern Townships? Here's why

After visiting her mother in Compton, Que., Robin Lundeborg was was driving back home to nearby Waterville when she noticed a pink glow in the distance.

"It was awesome. There's no other way to describe it. It was like something from a movie," said Lundeborg.

She was at the top of a hill when the light first appeared. As she drove closer, she saw the source of the eerie glow: greenhouses. Being passionate about photography, she stopped to take some photos.

"I knew they had greenhouses there, but I never saw it lit up like that," she said. "It was out of the ordinary."

Compton is located in the Eastern Townships and the sky there has been turning bright pink every night for the past two weeks. It's left some people speculating on social media about what's behind the odd phenomenon.

The light actually comes from an organic family farm, Abri-Végétale, which has been using blue and red LED lights to  grow their plants.

"It's really for the winter season, to compensate for the lack of sun," said co-owner Frédéric Jobin-Lawler.

The farm produces tomatoes and other types of vegetables year-round in greenhouses.

"We are already seeing the effectiveness. For the plants, it's as if there have been 10 days of spring sunshine," said Jobin-Lawler.

The installation of this new technology, imported from the Netherlands, was completed on Dec. 20. Jobin-Lawler is working on this project in collaboration with researchers from Université Laval's agricultural sciences department. 

While the plants are soaking up the artificial sun, not all life may enjoy the pink hue.

Martin Aubé, a physics professor at the Cégep de Sherbrooke, warns that light pollution can have negative impacts on the environment, especially on nocturnal animals, and it's important to minimize those impacts as much as possible.

"Light that propagates in the environment is dangerous. Prey can be seen by predators. A lit area is an area to avoid. There are fewer and fewer corridors of darkness for feeding, reproducing or drinking," he said. 

However, lighting used during the day or at dusk, as favoured by the the family farm, has a minimal impact. 

Jobin-Lawler said he's aware his farm is producing a lot of light. He said the leaves on the plants should soon be big enough to reduce the amount of light emitted from the greenhouses.

"The night was divided into two periods to leave the starry sky to the population and repeat a cycle at the end of the night to have a normal rhythm," he explained.

"Lighting is mainly used in the winter season to compensate for the lack of sunlight that we do not have in winter."