r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 13h ago
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 13h ago
Beachfront Lights Are Driving Sea Turtles Away From Costa Rica’s Nesting Beaches
ticotimes.netr/darksky • u/Collie_Opterous • 1d ago
Keeping Flagstaff’s skies dark for 25 years [re: amber LED lighting]
Flagstaff’s high elevation and astronomical conditions help make it a popular place for stargazing, but the city’s lighting rules also play an important role.
Shielded fixtures direct light downward rather than into the sky or neighboring properties, while lower-intensity, warmer amber and yellow lighting helps limit light pollution.
Earlier this year, the Arizona Department of Transportation replaced more than 370 highway light fixtures around the I-17 and I-40 interchanges, along Milton Road and along Route 66 with amber LEDs.
The project marked the first deployment of amber LED lighting on interstate highways in the United States.
r/darksky • u/TheMuseumOfScience • 1d ago
Fireballs Are Blazing Through November!
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This November keep your eyes peeled for earthgrazers blazing across the night sky! 🌠
The Leonid meteor shower is active November 6 - 30, peaking overnight November 16 through 17, bringing fast, colorful fireballs and the occasional low-flying Earthgrazer. The first-quarter moon sets around midnight, giving dark skies for optimal viewing in the Northern Hemisphere. Find a dark spot and look up!
r/darksky • u/Sadahziniia • 3d ago
Made a stargazing app for beginners and I'd love feedback from people who actually go outside with it
Hi all. I'm a solo developer and I've spent the last few months building SkyQuest, an Android star map aimed at people who are just getting into looking up.
What I'm after is honest feedback from real nights out, not reviews. Things like:
- Did the sky map line up with the real sky? If not, did the Align tool (point at a bright star, tap once) fix it?
- Was the "New to the night sky?" tour useful, or confusing?
- Is red light mode dark enough to keep your night vision?
- Anything that annoyed you, felt slow, or was hard to find.
What it does: live sky map that follows your phone (and a camera view), the Moon, planets and the ISS passes, a "Tonight" page with what's worth seeing, narrated sky tours, and an observing journal. The sky is calculated on the phone, so it works offline with no account.
As a thank you, I have 3 codes for the Pro upgrade. They go to the 3 most useful pieces of feedback: a bug I can reproduce, or a suggestion I end up building.
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skyquest.app
Android only for now, sorry iPhone folks. Clear skies!
r/darksky • u/plane-cloud-Watching • 3d ago
This is my first attempt to record the night sky 13 hours in 3 min
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r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 4d ago
A rehearsal for space mirrors leaves California rescuers unconvinced
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 5d ago
Alligator Alcatraz and its impact on Big Cypress National Preserve - "It’s difficult to be precise about damage done because public access to trails on the site is also still blocked, and officials still haven’t turned over records detailing what they did"
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 7d ago
'Sky glow': New Zealand Data centres could threaten Mackenzie's dark sky status - "It's not just vacant land waiting to be developed. It's open space, it's natural quiet, it's dark skies, it's mountain and lake views... Mackenzie feels different, because of what's not here."
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 8d ago
Approximately 1,400 individual satellites as seen in the New Zealand night sky. This is a composite image made up of 578 individual 8-second exposures, captured by photographer Brendan Larsen.
r/darksky • u/mrs_sheep • 8d ago
Orionid Meteor Showers 2026
What is the best time to look out for the orionids this week from South Africa?
r/darksky • u/moongoose96 • 10d ago
Sign the Petition to stop space mirrors from illuminating our dark skies!
Please sign the petition to help prevent space mirrors from becoming a thing.. I don't know what else to do to help stop this. Any suggestions?
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 10d ago
Reflect Orbital tested their Space Mirror design Saturday Night on California's Mt. Whitney - “This is clearly an unprecedented assault on the nighttime environment”
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 10d ago
1 billion birds hit glass every year: How North Texas homeowners can help protect birds during fall migration | Dallas is the third-most dangerous city for birds during spring and fall migration, according to a study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
r/darksky • u/ChineseOx • 11d ago
"Telescope ranches" in Texas. People pay to store $10K+ telescope rigs in the middle of nowhere to escape light pollution. The warehouse roofs roll off each night, and owners remote in from anywhere in the world
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 11d ago
Celebrity shark - stranded at South Korean Waterfront Park - gets no break from fans, light
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 11d ago
Not All Light Exposure Measures Are Equal: New Framework Aims to Fix Light - "the field is standing on a measurement problem it has barely begun to confront."
r/darksky • u/TheMuseumOfScience • 12d ago
Orionid Meteors at 41 Miles Per Second!
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Meteors are about to burst into our atmosphere at 41 miles per second! 🌠
The Orionid meteor shower peaks overnight October 21 and 22, and moves so fast that it leaves glowing trails. Active from October 2 to November 7 and visible from both hemispheres, the Orionids are best seen in the wee hours before dawn!
r/darksky • u/TheMuseumOfScience • 13d ago
Meteors at 41 Miles Per Second!
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Meteors are about to burst into our atmosphere at 41 miles per second! 🌠
The Orionid meteor shower peaks overnight October 21 and 22, and moves so fast that it leaves glowing trails. Active from October 2 to November 7 and visible from both hemispheres, the Orionids are best seen in the wee hours before dawn!
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 15d ago
"Its effects ripple across the day–night boundary" New Field Experiment on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau "shows that a modest dose of nighttime illumination—comparable to the glow of an ordinary urban street—restructured both nocturnal and diurnal pollination networks in alpine meadows"
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 17d ago
Versailles goes dark this Saturday, Oct. 10 as part of France's Annual 'Jour de la Nuit' (Night Day)
r/darksky • u/Scaramuccia • 17d ago
Milwaukee, WI: Halloween Haunts walk highlights how light pollution harms wildlife - “It is against our grain to think about light as being a negative thing... That is a hard lift to get people to understand."
jsonline.comr/darksky • u/spaghettialameat • 18d ago
(Update) meeting with my mayor
Hi everyone,
I just got back a little while ago from the meeting with my mayor. It was very informal and it ended up running for two hours - I was only expecting one! We ended up bouncing around topics a little bit, but she's... omg she's amazing and I love her. We agreed on practically everything.
She had a little bit of knowledge on light pollution before this, because as it turns out, my city was already planning on moving towards somewhat friendlier lighting - but now she has more ideas. I gave her papers about health impacts, papers about how more light doesn't necessarily equal less crime, as well as several pieces of example legislation courtesy of DSI, all of which she appreciated greatly and said they'll make great weekend reading and she'll bring them with her to the next planning meeting.
The local electric company owns the local streetlights here, but there's a liason, and my mayor will be looking at pushing for them to see what can be done re: streetlights. I did get 12 signatures in 3.5 hours on a little proof-of-concept unofficial petition I made (counting 3 family members and NOT counting me, but those family members are also voters in her ward so it still works), which she was impressed by, as well.
She took down the contact information for a semi-local dark sky lighting company that's nationally well-regarded, and will hopefully work towards reaching out to them.
She said she'll keep in touch and encouraged me to come to meetings and read the big 'city future plans' plan that just had a draft released.
I'm so, so, happy. This went better than I ever could've hoped for.