Dark Skies Awareness: seeing in the dark
Image credit Babak A. Tafreshi
“Dark Skies Awareness” is one of 11 Global Cornerstone Projects during the 2009 International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009). Its goal is to raise the level of public knowledge about adverse impacts of excess artificial lighting on local environments and help more people appreciate the ongoing loss of a dark night sky for much of the world’s population. Toward this end, a range of programs and resource materials has been developed. Everyone is invited to use any of these as local solutions to a global problem.
Dark Sky News Around the World
April 2009
Seventh Annual Dark-Sky Week Celebration
International Dark-Sky Week will occur from April 20 to April 26, 2009. This event began as National Dark-Sky Week in the United States in 2003, endorsed by the International Dark-Sky Association, the American Astronomical Society, and the Astronomical League. This year, the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) “Dark Skies Awareness” Global Cornerstone Project is also endorsing the event on a global level as the International Dark Skies Week (IDSW), part of IYA’s dark skies preservation efforts. The first night of IDSW will coincide with the Starlight Initiative’s “World Night in Defense of Starlight.” Find out more at http://www.ndsw.org/.
April 10, 2009
March 2009
Earth Hour
Join millions of people in cities across the world in turning off unneeded lights for 1 hour this Saturday, March 28, from 8:30-9:30pm, to make a highly visible global statement in support for action on climate change, energy conservation and light pollution. Find out more about Earth Hour at www.earthhour.org.
25 March, 2009
The Ninth European Symposium for the Protection of the Night Sky will
be launched at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, on 16th September 2009
and will then take place from the 17th to the 19th September 2009 in
the Market Place, Armagh, Northern Ireland.
The symposium will primarily focus on the following areas:
- Astronomy
- Wildlife, Energy and Environment
- Education
- Health
- Luminaire technologies and design
- Policy and Public lighting
Submit abstracts, up to 200 words, via email to submissions@lightpollution2009.eu no later than May 30th 2009.
Further Symposium details and pre-registration is available on the
website — www.lightpollution2009.eu
24 March, 2009
Dark Sky Discovery
The first two events in the Dark Sky Discovery programme have taken place in England. Professional and amateur astronomers, planetarium presenters, educators and open space managers gathered for a workshop at Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum to form the West Midlands Dark Sky Partnership and to develop a programme that will involve community groups in their local dark skies as windows into the universe. The Yorkshire Dark Sky partnership launched its programme at the Yorkshire Planetarium. The Dark Sky Discovery project, led by the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, is bringing together some 50 organisations to form 12 Dark Sky Partnerships, covering all parts of the UK and Ireland, as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.
www.darkskydiscovery.org.uk
13 March, 2009
GLOBE at Night: Shed Light on Light Pollution! (Podcast)
Two out of every three people in the United States cannot see the Milky Way galaxy arch across a pristinely dark night sky. Light pollution is obscuring people’s long-standing natural heritage to view stars. GLOBE at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by encouraging everyone to measure local levels of night sky brightness and contribute observations online to a world map. All it takes is a few minutes to participate between 7-10pm, March 16-28. Your measurements will make a world of difference. More information.
6 March, 2009
Starlight Reserves and World Heritage Workshop
The International workshop “Starlight Reserves and World
Heritage: Scientific, Cultural and Environment Values”
will be held on the island of Fuerteventuura on 10-11
March 2009. This meeting is part of the cycle of the
UNESCO-World Heritage activities “Astronomy and World
Heritage: across time and continents”, launched within the
framework of the World Heritage Initiative on Astronomical
Heritage during the celebration of the International Year
of Astronomy, IYA2009. More information.
2 March, 2009
February 2009
2nd International Symposium on Dark-Sky Parks
We are most pleased to announce the 2nd International Symposium on Dark-Sky Parks that will take place between 14 and 19 September 2009 at Lastovo Islands Nature park, Croatia. This is a unique event that provides your institutions and you individually to take part in a milestone process in nature conservation - in establishing an effective long-term framework for reducing light pollution internationally. Symposium participants are site managers, representatives of international and national (non-governmental) organisations, experts in biology, (eco)tourism, natural and cultural heritage, lighting industry, etc. The Call for papers, inviting the abstracts to be submitted by 3 May, is available at http://www.darkskyparks.org/. Further information, such as a provisional agenda, participants cofirmed, travel information, etcetera, will be available on the conference website.
23 February, 2009
New Zealand town is in the dark — and proud of it
TEKAPO, New Zealand — This little town is in the dark and proud of it.
Where other places greet the night by lighting up their streets and tourist attractions, this one goes the other way — low-energy sodium lamps are shielded from above, and household lights must face down, not up.
The purpose: to bring out the stars. More from the Associated Press...
8 February, 2009
Young Astronomers Study the Night Sky — and Collaborate with Peers Online
For the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s inhabitants live in cities, where they’re surrounded by bright lights that obscure their view of the stars. Astronomers worry that this disconnection from the night sky not only diminishes people’s appreciation of a valuable natural resource — one that has inspired scientists and poets alike for millennia — but also poses health concerns, such as disruption of sleep cycles. More from Edutopia...
4 February, 2009
January 2009
It’s good to be in the dark
Most of us don’t realize what we’re missing when we step outside at night. At best, a few dozen stars might be visible through the city haze.
But if you’ve ever driven through open farmland or stood on an island beach, you know how miraculous it is to see the stretching arm of our galaxy wash the sky in silver. More from the Tucson Citizen...
26 January, 2009
Dark Sky Star Party
As a fun kickoff for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, the UH Institute for Astronomy sponsored a Dark Sky Star Party at the Visitor Information Station (VIS) at the 9300 foot elevation of Mauna Kea on Thursday, January 15, from 5:00-10:00 pm. The event brought awareness to the importance of maintaining Hawaii's dark night skies, while showcasing some of the jewels therein through telescopes set up at the VIS. More from Astro Today...
15 January, 2009
Nightscape Magazine, the quarterly member publication of the International Dark Sky Association, features several stories about the International Year of Astronomy, including an article on the Dark Skies Awareness cornerstone. See issue #75 at the IDA web site.
01 January 2009
Starting this month and running the entire year:
“How Many Stars?” is an IYA Dark Skies Awareness citizen-science project for anyone anywhere to measure sky brightness and contribute the observations on-line to a worldwide map of light pollution. Take a few minutes to be a part of a local solution to a global problem; visit http://starlit.astronomy2009.at/.
01 January 2009
From 2008
Scotland prepares to host Europe’s first ‘dark sky park’—From the car park in the foothills of the Range of the Awful Hand, it is a short walk to what may be the darkest place in the country. Drive up here after sunset and you are unlikely to set eyes on another soul, yet the site is famous among a small group of enthusiasts who come here in the black of night to stand, watch and wonder. The patch of ground in the imposing row of mountains is surrounded by 300 square miles of moorland, woods and lochs that form the rugged wilderness of Galloway Forest Park in southern Scotland, and in a few weeks, officers at the forest will take steps towards making it Europe’s first official dark sky park. Read more from Friends of the Environment.
24 December 2008
The Candle Night campaign suggests spending time in more natural light, away from everyday life and artificial lighting. It’s not a movement asking people to turn off their lights necessarily, but it has spurred people and organizations to do just that as a result. For more information, see http://www.candle-night.org/english/.
21 December 2008
Listen to this Cosmic Radio news segment on Quiet Skies (Dark Skies analog for Radio Astronomy) [2.32 MB mp3 file].
December 2008
View the trailer for The Dark Side of Light, a 50 minute documentary on Light Pollution, produced in Germany.
December 2008
The New York Times has published a video opinion piece, In the Dark, How turning the lights off could help New York’s pending budget gap.
19 November 2008