Those of us living in cities, towns and villages are subject to varying degrees of light pollution — the inappropriate use of artificial light at night. But we don’t have to lose our stars as there are ways to mitigate the skyglow. Learn what you can do to help during International Dark Sky Week, 4—10 April.
A 125-year-old, 18-inch (46-cm) aperture Brashear refracting telescope with an illustrious history that has languished in storage for half a century has found a new Antipodean home. It marks the first step on the road to restoring the 7-ton, 8-metre-long instrument to its former glory, destined to become the centrepiece of a public outreach Astronomy Centre near the shore of Lake Tekapo in the heart of New Zealand’s South Island.
The International Dark-Sky Association has just announced that the site of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) Observatory in the Elqui Valley of northern Chile has been recognised and designated as the first International Dark Sky Sanctuary in the world. The site will be known as the “Gabriela Mistral Dark Sky Sanctuary” after the famed Chilean poet.
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