A Brief History of Dark Skies over Eagle Crest
January 2024- August 2025 (our first year and a half)
Summary
Eagle Crest Resort is located in Deschutes County, west of the City of Redmond. In April 2023, one of our residents joined the DarkSky Oregon email list. That led to a presentation in October 2023 to about 30 residents by Bill Kowalik, Chairperson of DarkSky Oregon. In short order we organized a formal group, learned how to conduct lighting inventories and began working to educate our residents about outdoor lighting. We measure the brightness of the night sky periodically, with an eventual goal to become certified as an International Dark Sky Community.
Details
We held our group’s first meeting in January 2024. Since then, we have:
Crafted a Charter: To promote and protect Eagle Crest’s magnificent Dark Skies and to diminish light pollution for the health, safety and well-being of all life.
Established an official Eagle Crest Committee with ~12+ volunteer members who meet monthly. We post shared public resources and meeting agendas for all.
Contacted similar communities (Black Butte Ranch, Sunriver) to learn about their process & progress.
Received training from DarkSky Oregon for conducting community & home lighting assessments.
Introduced ourselves to Eagle Crest management & leadership to gain permissions and support for moving forward on multiple goals.
Installed a recording Sky Quality Meter (SQM) and submit data quarterly to DarkSky Oregon for analyzing changes in light pollution across our State.
Conduct quarterly new moon visits to 20 specified measuring points on EC property with hand held SQMs.● Offer friendly, no pressure lighting assessments, neighbor to neighbor across EC.
Launched efforts at reducing public lighting around EC:
Adjusted lighting on our Community name at our main entrance off Cline Falls Highway to point only at the sign, not up into the sky;
Requested and achieved reduction of “party lights” around a small, rentable raised platform meeting area from all-night-every-night to just when in use;
Arranged for motion sensor lighting at two large mailbox kiosks in the community instead of all-night fluorescent white lights.
Began writing informative updates for the regular e-Blasts that go out to EC owners to educate our community
Write articles for our quarterly Eagle Crest newsletter with educating readers in mind.
Designed and posted at all neighborhood mailbox kiosks colorful & informative posters that change regularly to educate our neighbors about dark sky friendly lighting
Designed the logo at the top of this document for all our materials.
Publicly presented our education work and plans at our annual EC owners meeting.
Attend and report back on the DarkSky Oregon monthly meetings.
Requested funds from the EC budget and now have:
“Thank you” cards for neighbors who make efforts to reduce their outdoor lighting toward more dark sky friendly;
Neon vests for our volunteers who circle the neighborhoods gathering mobile SQM data points;
A meter that measures light from out-of-reach bulbs for assessment.
Our future plans include:
Seeking funding in order to provide two new dark sky friendly light bulbs to all homeowners in our Desert Sky neighborhood to replace current overly bright white outdoor lights in a way that maintains the aesthetic of parallel home design.
Installing a second permanent SQM on our East Ridge for gathering light pollution data & change over time.
Hosting on-site new moon Dark Sky parties for EC, complete with refreshments and telescopes shared by star gazing experts to view our dark skies and learn about how to make home-lighting more dark sky friendly.
Conducting a full lighting assessment of Eagle Crest community lighting to suggest to the management and then support any agreed upon additional improvements.
Eventually become a Dark Skies certified community or get as close to that as we can with continued education and data collection efforts.