Death Valley National Park has one of the darkest skies in the United States — for now. It seems the visible universe is under threat of annihilation from Las Vegas as that city grows and dumps more and more light into the sky. We meet up with ranger Dan Duriscoe, who is part of the National Park Service’s Night Sky Team, as he observes the dome of light emanating from Vegas. And stay with us as we travel to Las Vegas to see if anyone there really cares.
Correspondent John Ridley reports.
- International Dark Sky Association, “Our mission is to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.”
- Death Valley National Park
- National Park Service: Natural Lightscapes, “Starry night skies and natural darkness are part of the special places we protect. National Parks hold some of the last remaining harbors of darkness and provide an excellent opportunity for the public to experience this disappearing resource.”
- Sample Night Sky Quality Monitoring Report, Nevares Water Tank, February 22, 2006
November 24th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Great report on the loss of our skies. I was delighted to hear too that the Park Service is attempting to record the situation, but wish that greater resources could be invested in this important dilemma. I also suspect that most communities would be willing to address these issues through mitigations, except perhaps “self-centered” Las Vegas, if they were aware of these important impacts and the Legislative branches of the state and federal governments made the appropriate findings concerning the public interest.
This is a topic which is way overdue for discussion. Thanks very much to “bringing some light” to the importance of our skies.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:02 am
Hello,
Thank you for your timely report concerning the problem that city lights have on our ability to see the stars, planets, milky way and other night sky objects. There needs to be limits placed on how much more city lighting is allowed.
William Wolverton
Denver, Colorado