The Dark Skies Crusader
“Well, do you want to be a superhero or not?” They were still waiting for my answer, and I was struggling mightily to come up with a reason to accept their proposal. “Okay, so what superpowers do I have?” I asked. “None.” “Is there a salary increase or any kind of reward money involved?” I pretty much knew the depressing answer to that one as soon as the words left my lips. "You’re kidding, right?" "Of course not." Yep, pretty much what I expected. I could see that this was going down like a big rock in a small pool....
A Statewide Star Party
Maybe it was our anti-rain dance that did it. For days, weather forecasts had predicted rain for Friday, April 5—the date of North Carolina’s first-ever Statewide Star Party. But the skies cleared just in time over virtually the entire state. The Statewide Star Party was the kickoff to the 2013 North Carolina Science Festival – a two-week science party throughout the state. Across a 500-mile swath of North Carolina, from the mountains to the Outer Banks, 45 sites planned skywatching sessions for the public on April 5th, as the kickoff to the 2013 North Carolina Science Festival . Star party...
Mount Tai and the Starry Sky
Mount Tai is located in Shandong Province in eastern China. It is called the "chieftain" among five famous mountains in China. Since the Qin Dynasty, more than 2,000 years ago, 13 emperors have gone to worship at Mount Tai; generations of officials and scholars have left inscriptions on the stone of the mountain. In 1987, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared Mount Tai a World Cultural and Natural Heritage Site. It was the first double heritage site in China. Daytime at Mount Tai I live near Mount Tai and am familiar with these natural and cultural landscapes....
You Can Change the World’s Skies
Since you’re reading this blog post, the odds are you already know that there are serious problems with the way lighting is used in industrialized societies. The odds are also good that you’d like to do something about it. But what can any one individual accomplish, when lighting decisions are made by faceless corporations and impenetrable city bureaucracy? The answer is – a lot! There are two powerful factors that prevent corporations and governments from adopting excellent, modern, efficient lighting. The first factor is that they usually don’t know that they’re doing anything wrong! In the right place at the...
The Place Where all the Beauty Came from
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.” This quotation from C.S. Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces is one of my favorites and most accurately defines how I feel about IDA’s International Dark Sky Places Program . Across the globe we can see many areas blanketed, shrouded in light. In fact, we call them sky, or light, globes when they are seen from a distance. Out, beyond those walls of light there are places of simple beauty. The purity of isolated sky and people working hard to...
