The movie Madagascar has a sad, if witty, moment of astronomical relevance. The animals are in the New York zoo:
Alex the Lion: Today was a great day. It does not get better than this. Oh, look, it just did. Even the star is out. You won’t find a star like that in the wild.
Marty the Zebra: Helicopter.
Note the singular there: star. And even so, it’s not actually a star at all. Alex speaks for all the increasing number of people on this planet who never see the stars. If they lift up their eyes to the heavens at night they see only streetlights, spotlights, neon signs and buildings.
When we think of the world around us being ‘in trouble’ it conjures up flora and fauna on the edge of extinction, dirty rivers, the loss of parkland and forests and reserves.
But our dark skies are also in danger. Light pollution is not often spoken of, but it is all around most of us, even here in New Zealand.
Not everywhere in New Zealand though, thank goodness:
New Zealand’s bid to make Tekapo the world’s first night sky reserve is moving ahead …
Working party member Graeme Murray said earlier this year that many places overseas had lost touch with stars but the Mackenzie Country still had a pristine dark sky.
The reserve, which would be a world first, would ensure New Zealand was kept on the astronomy and astro-tourism map.
“We want to better protect one of the Mackenzie’s most valuable assets, its dark, starry sky,” Mr Murray said.
[Via : Expanded working party for starlight bid - National - NZ Herald News.]
The Mackenzie country in the South Island is stunning. I’ll never forget once driving on a winter’s night, rounding a corner and seeing Lake Tekapo with the full moon above at the other end, the moonlight shining along the length of the lake, the snow-topped Southern Alps in the background.
If the Tekapo area can be made a starlight reserve it’ll be a wonderful thing for New Zealand.
Of course, even more wonderful would be if the whole country would dispense with all the unnecessary and extraneous lights …
Hey. Welcome back.
Please leave a Comment.
Please share this Post. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License.
The Yet Another Related Posts Plugin has suggested these Posts for you too:
is jointly authored by Miraz Jordan and Maria Langer.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve seldom been anywhere in the USA that you can see the Milky Way. But you can see it from Courtenay Place. I’ve checked.
That said, it *is* pretty awesome in the Mackenzie country. I’ve spent any number of summer evenings watching the stars, satellites, and meteors while camping on Omarama airfield.
For what it’s worth, I think the skies may be even darker in Murchison.
I always like it round here when a storm knocks out the streetlights, and especially if the neighbours are away or it’s cold and they have their curtains drawn. At those times the sky is just that bit darker. I can actually get pretty good viewing right from the back deck sometimes.
Tēnā koe e Miraz!
Thanks for this. I hadn’t forgotten about the Starlight Reserve, but I hadn’t recently scratched around to find how it was developing. You are right. Sky clarity, or the ’seeing’ as some astronomers call it, is a resource we need to preserve here in New Zealand. But it’s really a global issue.
Ngā mihi nui
from Middle-earth