Dark Skies Awareness: seeing in the dark
The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark site is part of our planet's cultural and natural heritage. It is now more urgent than ever to preserve and protect dark night skies in places such as urban cultural landscapes, national parks and sites connected with astronomical observations, as well as to support the goals of UNESCO's thematic initiative, Astronomy and World Heritage, to preserve sites of astronomical importance for posterity.
The ongoing loss of dark night skies for much of the world's population is a serious and growing issue that not only impacts astronomical research, but also human health, ecology, safety, security, economics and energy conservation. According to the United Nations, 2008 will be the first year in which 3.3 billion people, over half the world's population, will live in cities. With the growth of large cities in Africa and Asia, the number of people living in dense urban areas could climb to 5 billion by 2030. As cities grow, so does their impact on the global environment.
For this Cornerstone project the IAU will collaborate with the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), representatives of the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the Starlight Initiative and other national and international partners in dark sky and environmental education on several related themes. The focus will be on three main citizen-scientist programmes to measure local levels of light pollution. These programmes will take the form of "star hunts" or "star counts", providing people with a fun and direct way to acquire heightened awareness about light pollution through firsthand observations of the night sky. Together the three programmes will cover the entire International Year of Astronomy 2009, namely GLOBE at Night (in March), the Great World Wide Star Count (in October) and How Many Stars (January, February, April through September, November and December).
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Task Group (Under Construction)
Advisors
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National Nodes: 132
Organisational Nodes: 29
National Websites: 81
Cornerstone Projects: 11
Special Task Groups: 11
Special Projects:6
