Hi, everyone, and happy new moon – this coming Monday, July 14. These are the warm, clear nights for star gazing here in Oregon, so let’s get outside and enjoy them!
There’s not a ton happening this month, but some interesting bits. Make sure to follow us on Instagram and add your inputs to the Street Light Guide plan. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dark Skies Gorge Is Now on Instagram!
Thanks to Dark Skies Gorge member Leti Valle Moretti, we're now on Instagram. No doubt we’ll be starting slowly, but eventually we'll be posting short pieces of interest, and we hope you like them. Follow us at Dark Skies Gorge. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We’re Writing a “Street Lights 101” Guide – and You Can Help! We receive a lot of questions from community members, and many of those involve street lights - so we’ve decided to answer your questions in a new guide. We’ll work closely with the right people at local agencies and power providers (who maintain the lights) to make sure our answers are correct. But first, help us define the questions that the Guide should answer. Who decides where a street light goes? What can I do about a too-bright street light? Why are some street lights purple? (No, it’s not a Prince thing.) How do I report a probem? What else? We want to make sure we’re answering ALL of your questions.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please send your questions to us by clicking this button. Thanks. |
|
|
|
Other things on our advocacy watch-list (repeat): We continue to wait for updates about the Hood River City Development Code, and lighting plans on the new Interstate Bridge. When new updates are posted, all of us will need to rally in support of Dark Skies. Finally, 10 Sky Quality Meters (SQMs) continue to measure sky darkness nightly in the Gorge. They are part of DarkSky Oregon’s 85 such meters installed across Oregon. |
|
|
|
|
Stars Were Important In Our Country's Founding Did you know that no nation’s flag had stars until ours did? That’s because the American revolution, and its defining documents, were influenced by the night skies. In a timely article for the Fourth of July that was shared by Dark Skies Gorge member Leanne Hogie, this Smithsonian magazine article explains how. In his wildly popular 1776 pamphlet Common Sense urging independence from Britain, Thomas Paine envisioned global politics as an astronomical system. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Paine argued that America, rather than orbiting the central sun of England, was large and mature enough to provide its own center of gravity. In building their government, the founders aimed to mirror the equality, balance, and unifying laws that they saw in the heavens. That’s why the 13 stars in our original flag are equal in size and in location. |
|
|
| A Giant Telescope Is Starting a Decade-Long Study of Dark Matter The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, perched on a mountaintop in Chile’s Atacama Desert, has started to look for dark matter and dark energy, two of the most puzzling phenomena in the universe. Every 30 seconds, the observatory’s massive digital camera takes an incredibly detailed image of the night sky to create a complete map of the sky. Doing this every night for 10 years will create a full dataset known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Astronomers hope the scale and detail of the observations will help them measure the properties of dark matter. For more information, here’s an article from the project website. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
A new section of the newsletter to let you know what Dark Sky related events are coming up.
|
|
|
|
DARK SKIES RESOURCES
And another new section with links to Dark Skies sites that do an excellent job providing background and recommendations:
|
|
|
|
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PARTICIPATION
Repeat from previous months, but a good regular reminder of ways you can help the cause. Hopefully something here might appeal to you. Might you want to: Forward this email to your networks to extend the community getting our newsletters. Work on social media outreach to help spread the word about Dark Skies. Be on an investigation and light audit team. Volunteer at public tabling events like we did at HR First Friday in June. Providing feedback on what you like (or not) about the newsletter and how we can improve things.
Please let us know by replying to this email or clicking this link: |
|
|
|
|
Okay, that’s it for this month. As always, let us know what you think of the content and provide recommendations to continue to make the newsletter even better. Remember – Let’s keep ourselves in the dark.
Best, Mike Hendricks, Mike McKeag, Mark Zanmiller |
|
|
Always Growing our Network |
|
|
|
Please pass along this email or the link below to friends who might be interested in receiving our newsletters. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
