What is Dark Skies?

You might not have heard of the Dark Skies conservation effort, it's the idea of keeping our skies dark by lowering our light pollution. Since the boom in Stargazing we're seeing a lot more places such as parks and reserves adopt a dark sky policy, where you guessed it... they're dark! Making stargazing and seeing up into the great beyond ten times more awe inspiring and thought provoking than it already is!

 

Where can you find Dark Skies Places?

As of January 2022, there are 195 certified IDSPs (International Dark Sky Places) in the world with 60 of them being parks with the majority in the U.S but also in places such as Northern Ireland,Netherlands and Croatia, with 3 being set up so far in England: Bodmin Moor, Northumberland and West Penwith. Dark Skies places don't just have to be parks or reserves, they are even being created in sites near or surrounded by urban environments such as a municipal park. There are total of 16 Dark Skies Places in the whole of the UK. If you're near enough to one of these we can't recommend it enough. Grab your telescope and get gazing!

 

You can find a comprehensive list and interactive map of every site available here at: https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/

 

How does light pollution effect the environment?

Not only is light pollution effecting the sky at night, it also effects nocturnal wildlife. Bats use a combination of amazing night vision and echolocation to navigate in the dark and it can be very confusing to them seeing a artificial light, also bats favoured food source bugs! They are also confused by the artificial light, meaning they're not in the location fit for the bats and would have reduced breeding patterns.

 Birds also heavily rely on their eyes to hunt, similar to bats, birds such as the Peregrine Falcon and Owls hunt at night, Dimming your lights can be the difference for our feathered friends.

 

What could you do to help?

If you would like to do your bit and reduce your own personal light pollution, here's a few things you can do!

 

- Light only what you need, an old chestnut. try not to leave lights on in rooms that are not occupied.

- Directional lighting, try to use lights that focus down I.E spotlights.

- Try avoiding floor lights and bollards

- And of course warm lighting, most outdoor lighting is now LED so warm white options are available.

 

Find out more at: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/light-pollution.html

 

Our Dark Skies T-Shirt will be coming to our website very soon! So watch this space!