Dark Sky Islands

There are only two International Dark Sky Islands in the world, and both of them are in the British Isles: Sark in the Channel Islands; and Coll in the Inner Hebrides.

Sark

Coll

They were designated by the IDA (the International Dark-sky Association) under their International Dark Sky Communities programme, Sark in 2011 and Coll in 2013.

These beautiful short films show what you’ll see on a clear night:

The Starry Skies of Sark from Sue Daly on Vimeo.

Isle of Coll – IDA Dark Sky Community from Ewan Miles on Vimeo.

I’ve visited both islands several times, and they’re beautiful places, and not just at night when the stars come out. They’re very different: Sark is lush, with hedgerows and country lanes, and at 49°25’N latitude its climate is very continental. Coll on the other hand is almost entirely treeless, it’s rugged, boasts long sandy beaches, and lies at 56°38’N. Contrary to common impressions of the weather on the west of Scotland, Coll is one of the sunniest parts of Scotland and so has, like Sark, a high number of clear dark nights.

And it’s on dark nights when these islands are at their most stunning. Now that summer’s on its way though the dark nights will shorten and eventually disappear altogether until autumn, so you’ve plenty of time to plan your visit. Sark has a longer dark sky season, running from August till mid-May, as opposed to Coll’s which runs from September till mid-April, but the nights are longer on Coll than on Sark during the darkest winter months, the best time for stargazing.

Make sure that if you’re going to Sark or Coll for stargazing that you avoid the bright moon. Ideally you would be there during a new moon or thin crescent; at the very least you should avoid the week on either side of the full moon. To maximise your chances of seeing the wonderful dark skies make sure you stay for several nights!

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International Dark Sky Places

The global family of International Dark Sky Places – areas with stunning night skies and exemplary lighting controls to preserve those skies – has grown again recently, with the addition of some huge parks and reserves. There are currently (as of June 2012) 18 places around the world that satisfy the International Dark-sky Association‘s (IDA) requirements.

The Church of the Good Shepherd, Aoraki Mackenzie IDSR Image by Fraser Gunn

I’ve been lucky enough to visit 12 out of these 18 incredible places, including the two most recent additions to the IDA family, NamibRand Nature Reserve in Namibia, and Aoraki Mackenzie in New Zealand, both of which have been awarded International Dark Sky Reserve status this year.

The IDA has three different designations: International Dark Sky Park (IDSP), International Dark Sky Reserve (IDSR), and International Dark Sky Community (IDSC).

IDSPs are areas of public land that are near-empty wildernesses, and which have enacted strict controls of outside artificial lighting throughout the entire park. There are currently ten IDSPs.

IDSRs are large areas centred on a dark sky core, a significant area – an observatory, say – in need of protection against light pollution, and a 15km-minimum buffer zone around that core, encompassing surrounding communities. The communities in the buffer zone have lighting controls that help minimise light pollution in the core area. There are currently four IDSRs.

IDSCs are communities – cities, towns, villages, islands – that have enacted exemplary lighting controls to limit the spread of light pollution into their night skies. There are currently four IDSCs.

The following table has some information about the various International Dark Sky Places:

Name	Location	Park Area	Designation	Year Designated
Aoraki Mackenzie	New Zealand	4300 km2	Reserve	2012
Big Bend National Park	Texas, USA	3242 km2	Park	2012
Borrego Springs	California, USA	110 km2	Community	2009
Cherry Springs State Park	Pennsylvania, USA	4.3 km2	Park	2008
Clayton Lake State Park	New Mexico, USA	1.9 km2	Park	2010
Exmoor National Park	England, UK	692 km2	Reserve	2011
Flagstaff	Arizona, USA	255 km2	Community	2000
Galloway Forest Park	Scotland, UK	780 km2	Park	2009
Geauga Observatory Park	Ohio, USA	4.5 km2	Park	2011
Goldendale Observatory State Park	Washington, USA	0.2 km2	Park	2010, provisional
The Headlands of Emmet County	Michigan, USA	2.2 km2	Park	2011
Homer Glen	Illinois, USA	58 km2	Community	2011
Hortobagy National Park	Hungary	800 km2	Park	2011
Mont Megantic	Quebec, Canada	5000 km2	Reserve	2008
NamibRand Nature Reserve	Namibia	1722 km2	Reserve	2012
Natural Bridges National Monument	Utah, USA	31 km2	Park	2006
Sark	Channel Islands, UK	5.4 km2	Community	2011
Zselic Landscape Protection Area	Hungary	90.4 km2	Park	2009

 

Dark Sky Defender

I was lucky enough to attend the excellent International Dark-skies Association conference in New Jersey, USA, last weekend, and meet many of the amazing people who work to set up Dark Sky Places and combat bad lighting around the world.

I was very chuffed to be awarded the IDA’s “Dark Sky Defender 2011” award for my work in setting up Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park, and Sark Dark Sky Island, as well as helping others (such as Exmoor National Park, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, and North Ronaldsay in Orkney) move towards Dark Sky status.

Me (middle) receiving my Dark Sky Defender award from IDA's Executive Director Bob Parks (R), and President Robert Wagner (L)

At the conference I was particularly impressed by the work being done in Geauga Park, Ohio, in their Dark Sky Park:

Dark Sky Travels with the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust

I just heard today that my grant application to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust has been accepted, which means lots of traveling for me later this year!

I applied to the WCMT in late 2010 to visit all of the Dark Sky Places in North America. There are eight of them in total:

• Mont Megantic National Park near Montreal, Canada
• Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania
• Geauga District Park in Ohio
• Goldendale Observatory Park in Washington state
• Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah
• Clayton Lake State Park in New Mexico
• Borrego Springs in California
• Flagstaff in Arizona

This first on the list, and the only one not in the USA is the world’s only Dark Sky Reserve, while the final two on the list are Dark Sky Communities. All the others are Dark Sky Parks.

I aim to spend around a week at each one, studying how they engage with local tourism to promote astronomy as a tourist attraction and thereby boost the economy around the Dark Sky Places. I’ll bring that knowledge back to the UK to help the existing (Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park, and Sark, the world’s first Dark Sky Island) and proposed (Exmoor, Peak District, Brecon Beacons, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national parks, and Orkney) Dark Sky Places in the UK.

I’ll be going some time in either September or October 2011, and I’ll be blogging, tweeting and hopefully podcasting throughout my trip.

My thanks go to the WCMT who saw the value in what I proposed to do, and have given me this amazing opportunity!

Sark: The World’s First Dark Sky Island

The Channel Island of Sark has been recognised for the quality of its night sky by the International Dark-sky Association (IDA), who have designated it the world’s first dark sky island, the latest in a select group of dark sky places around the world.

Sark has no public street lighting, there are no paved roads and cars, so it does not suffer from the effects light pollution in the same way as towns and cities do. This means that the night sky is very dark, with the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon, meteors streaking overhead, and thousand of stars on display.

Caption: “Stargazers on Sark enjoy the wonder of the Milky Way”. Image Credit: Martin Morgan-Taylor

The announcement was hailed as a great success by astronomers. Prof Roger Davies, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: “This is a great achievement for Sark. People around the world are become increasingly fascinated by astronomy as we discover more about our universe, and the creation of the world’s first dark sky island in the British Isles can only help to increase that appetite. I hope this leads to many more people experiencing the wonders of a truly dark sky”.

The award follows a long process of community consultation, which included the assessment of the sky darkness and an audit of all the external lights on Sark. A comprehensive lighting management plan was created by lighting Jim Patterson of the Institute of Lighting Engineers, and many local residents and businesses have altered their lighting to make them more dark sky friendly, ensuring that as little light as possible spills upwards where it can drown out the starlight.

Caption: “The Milky Way above the Seigneur's Mill on Sark”. Image Credit: Martin Morgan-Taylor

The government of Sark, the Chief Pleas, were supportive from the start. Conseilleur Paul Williams, chair of the Agriculture Committee, which oversees environmental matters, said: “Sark becoming the world’s first dark sky island is a tremendous feather in our environmental cap, which can only enhance our appeal. Sark is a wonderful island and this recognition will bring our uniqueness and beauty to a wider audience.”

This designation means that Sark joins the select group of international sites chosen for their dark skies, including Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park, which became Europe’s first International Dark Sky Park in November 2009.

Steve Owens, the dark sky development officer who led Sark’s application to the IDA, recognises the benefits that this might have for the community on Sark: “This is an ideal opportunity to bring stargazers to the island throughout the year, and I think that Sark is about to see a boom in astro-tourism, especially in the winter months. We’ve seen a surge of public interest in astronomy in recent years, with the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 and more recently with the success of BBC Stargazing Live, and it’s great that places like Sark and Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park are allowing people from towns and cities to come and experience a dark sky”.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Sark Tourism: http://sark.info/

International Dark-sky association: http://www.darksky.org/

Campaign for Dark Skies: http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/

Dark Skies on Sark

I just noticed that the short news clip about Sark’s dark skies filmed for channelonline.tv is available online.

You can view it on their website or on Youtube:

From channelonline.tv:

One of the Channel Islands could soon be recognised as a top spot worldwide to look at the night sky.

Sark is in the process of applying to become the first Dark Skies Island in the world. It will mean the island having a lighting management plan to make sure that nothing too bright is put outside. The UK’s representative for the International Dark Skies Association has been in Sark to assess the sky and the lights on the island.

Steve Owens is from the International Dark Skies Association: “I’ve found as you would expect that the skies here are very dark, there’s very little light pollution comes from Sark itself. The only real problem you have is from other islands like Guernsey, Jersey and in fact the east coast of France that a tiny little glow on your horizon from those places. But to all intents and purposes you’ve got skies darker than ninety nine percent of people in the UK will ever see.”

Jo Birch from La Societe Sercquaise added: “From a tourism point of view it would be lovely for us to be the sort of place that you don’t have to be an astronomer or a star head you just have to enjoy the night sky, that’s one of them. There is really the sort of let’s do our bit for the environment because if you have effective lighting you probably use less of it and then you have to generate less electricity so that’s always a good thing. I think it just raises the profile of this nice place, let’s conserve it and I would say those three together really, that’s what it’s all about.”

The whole community plus the tourism industry has to be behind the application. Hotels can help by keeping lighting low and providing binoculars and astronomy books for guests. It’s believed that just ten lights need to be changed for the island to be dark enough. So they’re hoping to have the accreditation in place in time to take advantage of the long dark nights next winter.

Sark: Day 6

Final day on Sark. I finished the lighting audit (well, kind of – there are a few houses still to do that Jo Birch will do in my absence) and got to spend a bit of time exploring the island for leisure rather than work.

After my talk last night everyone was “hello”-ing me in the street and stopping to ask more about the dark skies. The most common question is: “so, do we qualify?” which really shows how excitied everyine is, and how seriously they’re all taking it. I began to feel like “Mac” MacIntyre in Local Hero. Except here the phone boxes are green.

"Yes, Mr Happer, I'm watching the skies. Yes, sir, especially around the constellaion Virgo"

Lunch today was a picnic with Sam and Elliot in Dixcart Bay. Elliot had his first paddle in the sea. It was cold and made him cry. But he soon cheered up when the picnic came out.

Lunch at Dixcart Bay

We rounded the day off with a visit to the Seigneurie, and then home for dinner. I popped out later on to do some star gazing at Felicity Bellfield’s house Beauchamp along with he daugher Lucy, Jo Birch and Jeremy Bateman. It was a lovely clear night and using only binos and a small scope we observed for an hour or so before the cold made us retreat indoors.

I’ll be sad to leave Sark tomorrow; it really is an amazing island, and hopefully soon you’ll hear that they’ve acheived international recognition for their dark skies.

Sark: Day 4

Another day, another bunch of houses audited. Even slower today due to even more enthusiastic residents. Today I covered the south east of the island, down to Dixcart Bay and along the coast to the harbour, up past the giant Aval Hotel and its 65 lights (soon to be refitted to have all downlighters, in support of Sark’s bid to become a Dark Sky Community, and north-east of the Avenue. I had hoped to cover much more ground, but there are still two days to go.

At 5pm tonight I met the Conseillers that make up the Chief Pleas of Sark, what must be the most representative democracy in the world, with 28 Conseillers for 650 people, roughly one for every 23 people!

Some pics from my day’s travels:

Dixcart Bay Arch

Dixcart Bay Waterfall

Dixcart Bay

A Canon from Falkirk

Canon Plaque

Victorian Vine and Ladder at La Seigneurie

A Chair made out of a Whale's Vertibra that washed ashore in Victorian times

Sark's only lampost, north harbour

Sark: Day 3

Another day, another hundred houses audited… People here are very enthusiastic for the dark skies, which is great, but doesn’t half slow you down as they stop to chat!

That said, I still got a lot done today. The lighting here is, on the whole, pretty minimal, with a very few exceptions. So far I’ve seen no “good” modern lights, a few very bad bright security lights, and the majority are simply low wattage bulkhead lights on a switch, and so rarely used. And at 50p per unit, who’d blame them for keeping them off.

Oh yes, and a dog bit me on the leg today. It’s probably just psychosomatic, but I can feel my jaw locking…

Lighting Pics (Warning, contains nudity)

A Good Security Light

A Bad Security Light

A Bulkhead Light

Heritage Lights

A Globe Light

Sark: Night 2

Not as clear as last night; lots of haze to begin with, but that cleared by 2230, leaving only lots of low horizon cloud, which of course reflects the light from Guernsey, Jersey and France more effectively, brightening the sky.

Did a south to north walk, taking readings from La Sorbonnerie to the Heart, and didn’t find anywhere as dark as the old mill last night. Readings were up about 0.1 or 0.2 magnitudes per square arcsecond, based on readings I took at La Vauroque and the Mermaid Inn to compare with last night.

Readings all came in between 21.1 and 21.4 magnitudes per square arcsecond so still pretty dark.

Pics from Little Sark in the south and the school playing fields in the centre, not great due to clouds; they make it look pretty light polluted…

That’s the dark sky survey complete, but night try and get a few other good pics if the skies clear; forecast is cloudy for the next few days.