Globe at Night: A Citizen Science Tutorial
Globe at Night is the most widely used citizen science programme for measuring light pollution — over 300,000 observations from 180+ countries since 2006, and the direct data…
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Øvre Pasvik — Europe’s Northernmost Dark Sky Park (2024)
In July 2024, Øvre Pasvik National Park — 11,900 ha of boreal taiga at approximately 69°N in Finnmark, northeastern Norway — became Norway’s first IDA-certified International Dark Sky…
Westhavelland — Germany’s Dark Sky 60 km from Berlin
In February 2014, the International Dark-Sky Association designated Sternenpark Westhavelland — approximately 75,000 ha of wetland and fen in Brandenburg — as Germany’s first International Dark Sky Reserve….
Dark Infrastructure: Dutch Donkerte-Netwerk and Natura 2000 Corridors
Darkness as a spatial planning resource — that was a theoretical concept for most of the 2000s. The Netherlands operationalised it: the donkerte-netwerk (darkness network) identifies priority dark corridors in…
Underwater Light Pollution: Coral Reefs, Salmon, and Algal Blooms
Coastal ALAN penetrates several metres into the water column, shifts predator-prey encounter rates, desynchronises coral spawning cycles, and extends the effective day length for photosynthetic organisms at the…
Falchi 2016 and Kyba 2017 Explained: The World Atlas Numbers
Three papers have done more to define the global light pollution debate than anything else published in the field. Falchi et al. (2016, Science Advances) mapped artificial sky…
SQM Buyer’s Guide: L vs. LU vs. LU-DL
A Sky Quality Meter (SQM) costs $155 to $287 USD and delivers a quantitative zenith sky brightness reading in under three seconds. Unihedron in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada is…
Kerry Dark Sky Reserve — The Northern Hemisphere’s First Inhabited Gold Tier
On 27 January 2014, Kerry International Dark Sky Reserve — covering approximately 700 km² of the Iveragh Peninsula in southwest Ireland — became the first Gold Tier IDA…
Galloway Forest Park — Europe’s First Dark Sky Park
In November 2009, Galloway Forest Park — 78,000 ha of managed forest and moorland in Dumfries and Galloway, southwest Scotland — became the first IDA-certified Dark Sky Park…
The LED Paradox: Jevons, Portugal +120%, and Why Efficiency Backfired
LEDs reduce energy per lumen by 60 to 80%. Global installed lumens rose anyway. Kyba et al. (2017, Science Advances 3:e1701528) tracked Earth’s artificially lit outdoor surface between…