First Swiss star park – tips for us?

Hi Raul,
Thanks for this Raul. It is interesting to see what Switzerland is doing.

In October New Zealand held its Starlight Conference where representatives from the IDA, City and District councils, movers and shakers of International and New Zealand’s present and future Dark sky parks came together for four days of presentations. The focus of the conference was not just the impact and control of light pollution, but also on providing help to those applying for dark sky status and the concept of New Zealand becoming a Dark Sky Nation. 56 presentations in all. There was representatives from Canary islands, Canada, Indonesia, South Africa so the conference had presentations internationally as well as locally.

New Zealand already has 3 dark sky parks, or reserves, and a number either under application or investigating the concept. Selwyn District Council is investigating the concept of one of the criteria of a Dark Sky community. There is quite the ground swell of interest in the concept of protecting the dark skies of New Zealand from light pollution. Not just to protect the night sky for astronomers, but also in relation to the observed damage to the ecology, plants, animals and insects, and the impact on human health. The drive for this protection has increased with the roll out world wide of LED lighting as health practioners, scientist and lighting designers became aware of the impact of this type of light transmittance. A number of groups, typically based within the astronomy world are watching the research and observations around the world of the impact of this light. The RASNZ (Royal Astronomy Society of New Zealand) has a strong interest, and driving the creation of the dark sky reserves around New Zealand. Steve Butler leads their Dark Sky Group.

Astronomers would be one of the first to see and understand the impact of light pollution, we see it on our photographs and we notice it is becoming more difficult to see the night sky, and of late more difficult to see deep space objects.

The first thing we could do is promote awareness and consideration of what light we use and where we put it. The IDA promotes the following suggestions:
Light only where you need to.
Use energy efficient bulbs and only as bright as you need.
Shield lights and direct them downwards. This is the most important one for protecting the night sky.
Choose warm white light bulbs. So these would be 2700k, the colour of the light, or lower if available.
Join IDA.. Link to Dark Sky website

Basically be aware the light pollution exists and the easiest to solve.

With the roll out of LED street lighting world wide there have been a number of studies that have raised concerns of the impact of this new type of lighting. At present the CIE, an international commision of lighting is 2 years into a 5 year study on LED street lighting. There is also a number of people locally working on encouraging the City and District Councils and the NZTA (New Zealand Transport Agency) to be aware of the impact of LED lights within the nationwide roll out of LED street lights. To encourage better shielding, use of focal lens, dimming and in some cases motion detectors and to consider dropping the light ‘colours’ to a warmer light which is gentler on the local ecology. I understand that recently the McKenzie District council has received approval from NZTA for 2200k LED lighting. That’s a good step in the right direction.

Tracey Richards
Dark Sky Coordinator