Authored by: bobmoody onFriday, April 23 2004 @ 08:16 am EDT

The International Dark-Sky Association is a world-wide organization dedicated to preserving our dark skies wherever they may exist. It is also instrumental in placing restrictions on building and bill board lighting codes where they currently interfere with dark sky sites such as near major observatories.

By making the public aware that so much lighting pointing \"into\" the sky is a waste of valuable resources, and that virtually identical illumination with PROPER SHIELDING can still do the intended job AND be dark sky friendly, everyone wins. Much of the lighting in American cities is wasteful beyond belief. There is also a safety factor, in that shielded lighting removes harmful and dangerous glare, while preserving the function of illumination of our intersections and highway interchanges. When done properly, illumination levels can be cut to acceptable levels, thereby saving money to whomever is paying the bills, while reducing glare and overall light output of cities allowing more people to again \"see\" our starry skies from within city limits.

I vote to join IDA, and to become involved in the local efforts to reduce the skyglow we now see to our south from here at Coleman Observatory.

I would like to see a group of our members who can devote the time and effort into simply seeing what can be done and what can AOAS do to achieve this goal.

What say you?

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Authored by: Chuck Larson onWednesday, April 28 2004 @ 08:14 am EDT

I definetly favor joining the IDSA. We are losing out dark skies to the
point that we will not have any before long. My talks with Kent Marts, the
new editor of the Astronomical League\'s journal, Reflector, has made a
strong reason for doing so. As President of the Sugarcreek Astronomical
Society in northwest Arkansas, he approached the Bella Vista city fathers
regarding the problem of their light pollution. As most politicians are prone
to do, they were not concerned about astromers concerns. However, his
approach was to take the matter of cost cutting, and the data available
through IDSA to them. With $ figures to back up what the astronomers
were taliking about, the city fathers were much more interested in saving
money and still providing the lighting that they needed (without all the
glare). By using this same approach around our viewing area, I believe we
can begin to change the thinking that \"brighter is better\" and get all the
light placed on the ground where it will do the most good. There is
already a proposal in one city to change ordinances and contractors have
taken a strong interest in helping out. This is going to take a long time
around here, but we have to start now. With some help from key
individuals we may be able to move mountains instead of molehills.
Let\'s do it together by taking the lead on this problem.
Chuck Larson

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Chuck Larson

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