International Dark Sky Park
In 2006 the International Dark-skies Association designated a small park in Utah, Natural Bridges National Monument, as the world’s first International Dark-sky Park, thereby setting the bar incredibly high for those parks that wanted to follow suit. The skies above Natural Bridges are amongst the darkest in the USA. Once a source of wonder–and one half of the entire planet’s natural environment—the star-filled nights of just a few years ago are vanishing in a yellow haze. Human-produced light pollution not only mars our view of the stars; poor lighting threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems, affects human circadian rhythms, and wastes energy to the tune of $2.2 billion per year in the U.S. alone. Protecting the dark skies of Utah is one of my passions, we recently created a Colorado Plateau Chapter of the International Dark Sky Association which is holding it’s second annual Heritage Dark Sky Festival in Torrey this coming weekend.
Read more about Steve Owens, a Brit who has received a traveling fellowship to visit and report on all the dark sky parks starting with Natural Bridges. Why waste a dark sky? . . . more>>
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The Colorado Plateau has some of the most light pollution free dark skies in the continental U.S. On a dark Plateau night, the Milky Way casts a shadow. Dark nights may not feel intuitively like a resource worth protecting, but on this blog by Jaymi Heimbuch of treehugger.com, youthful photographer Ben Canales captures some of the grandeur and wonder of a dark, starry night with his camera. In a (somewhat long winded) attached video he even will show you how. . . . more>>