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Arizona Town Embraces the Dark: "Turn Off Your GD Lights"

Craig

Senator
Supporting Member
Black out curtains are one of the deed restrictions. That's how much the star gazing community of Arizona Sky Village despises artificial light. Most houses have their own observatory...because the sky is really pretty amazing and this is one of the least light polluted places in the US. Most of us live in congested urban areas and the sky we see is a pale imitation of what really fills our universe. Hell...some folks bought the house behind us...in a rural area...and they leave their damn backyard lights on all night. WTF? Sigh.

Anyhoo, instead of a few bright stars pushing through, Orion's Belt, The Big Dipper...the sky is awash with twinkling stars...

Take a nighttime drive into Arizona Sky Village, in a remote valley in south-east Arizona, and the only thing you can see clearly are the millions of stars twinkling overhead. Beyond the light show, the sky is a deep inky black, and the ground below is nothing but shadows. Dimmed car headlights might pick up spooked jackrabbits hopping through the desert brush, but the village’s unlit houses are all but invisible in the darkness.

That’s the way the residents of this astronomy-loving community like it. The less light, the better their view of the universe.

There’s only one rule here, says Jack Newton, co-founder of the village: “Turn off your goddamned lights.”

Arizona Sky Village is home to a quirky community of stargazers. Shielded by the nearby Chiricahua mountains from urban sky glow – scientists’ poetic name for light pollution – nearly every house in the rural 450-acre development has its own domed observatory, complete with an array of telescopes.

Outdoor lights are strictly forbidden; blackout shades are required in every window of every house; and nighttime driving is discouraged. Most residents don’t want to be bothered with driving at night anyway: they’re too busy scanning the skies...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/13/stargazers-arizona-sky-village-home-observatories

 
Black out curtains are one of the deed restrictions. That's how much the star gazing community of Arizona Sky Village despises artificial light. Most houses have their own observatory...because the sky is really pretty amazing and this is one of the least light polluted places in the US. Most of us live in congested urban areas and the sky we see is a pale imitation of what really fills our universe. Hell...some folks bought the house behind us...in a rural area...and they leave their damn backyard lights on all night. WTF? Sigh.

Anyhoo, instead of a few bright stars pushing through, Orion's Belt, The Big Dipper...the sky is awash with twinkling stars...

Take a nighttime drive into Arizona Sky Village, in a remote valley in south-east Arizona, and the only thing you can see clearly are the millions of stars twinkling overhead. Beyond the light show, the sky is a deep inky black, and the ground below is nothing but shadows. Dimmed car headlights might pick up spooked jackrabbits hopping through the desert brush, but the village’s unlit houses are all but invisible in the darkness.

That’s the way the residents of this astronomy-loving community like it. The less light, the better their view of the universe.

There’s only one rule here, says Jack Newton, co-founder of the village: “Turn off your goddamned lights.”

Arizona Sky Village is home to a quirky community of stargazers. Shielded by the nearby Chiricahua mountains from urban sky glow – scientists’ poetic name for light pollution – nearly every house in the rural 450-acre development has its own domed observatory, complete with an array of telescopes.

Outdoor lights are strictly forbidden; blackout shades are required in every window of every house; and nighttime driving is discouraged. Most residents don’t want to be bothered with driving at night anyway: they’re too busy scanning the skies...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/13/stargazers-arizona-sky-village-home-observatories

The Moon and Sixpence

Only mindless misfit escapists get obsessed with the Twinkling Void. These mutants must be mocked mercilessly; they are dragging us down. It all reminds me of an ancient mentally masturbating philosopher who walked along gazing at the non-existent heavens, fell in a deep hole, and cracked his skull wide open.
 

Days

Commentator
there are no stars in Chicago.

#1 light pollution city in the world. It is tough to know when the real dawn is happening in the Chicago sky (east of us in the southwest suburbs)... the sky is always lit from the city, it doesn't turn black at night, it remains a dark blue and the clouds above are still a faint white... likewise it is tough to determine when dusk has ended, we are the city of eternal dusk.

Chicago is just like the surface of the moon; you can't see any stars.
 
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