Stargazers UK Architectural Project, Hello everyone!

[dlape]

My name is Dom,

I have joined this community because I am deeply interested in stargazing in a form of scientific, educational and recreational activity. Additionally, I would like to take this interest further by developing my thesis project about it. 

I would appreciate all your views if any of you would be interested to share. 

I am Architecture Student from University of Liverpool, UK. As my final thesis project I would like to study on the issues of Dark Sky Parks and astro-tourism, which is (assuming so far) picking up in the UK. My project is about the rekindling of the sense of wonder, the discovery and perception of nature. I am hoping to develop this from an architects point of view as well as a member of this community. I believe light pollution is a serious environmental challenge as well. 

I have gotten familiar with the most popular stargazing locations in UK from:

http://www.darkskydiscovery.org.uk/dark-sky-discovery-sites/map.html

And have found out some really desirable locations like: Isle of Man, Galloway Forest Park, Exmoor or Kielder.

I would appreciate your thoughts if you know there is something particularly "ongoing" in the UK about stargazing I should investigate. Weather a need of a visitor centre (i could propose as my final) or an serious development programme, i should know about. 

Thank you for the hospitality, and your time to reading this. Hope to hear back from anyone.

[brantuk]

Hi Dom and welcome to SGL.

Just a couple of thoughts for you that might provide some help/inspiration.

If there's any issue with "Dark Sky Parks and astro-tourism" it's perhaps that there aren't enough of them.

I'm not terribly sure which part of "can someone please turn the lights off at night and kill the light pollution" provides such a serious environmental challenge. It's a pretty easy thing to do - especially unnecessary road lights, unoccupied office buildings, and factories/warehouses. Town and city sky glow wrecks our hobby.

Perhaps the profits of selling electricity take precedence over the benefits of preserving natural resources and restoring the night time environment? It's doubtful that light pollution even figures in the thinking.

Imho you should get a telescope as soon as poss and try to use it - you'd soon become familiar with any "issues" and it would certainly help satisfy your interest in stargazing as a "scientific, educational and recreational activity" (which is basically what we all do here). You'll get plenty of helping choosing a scope for sure.

I would suggest the most popular stargazing locations are peoples back yards, personal observatories, and local astro clubs and dark sites. The places in your list are used by the astro community for one off events and gatherings a couple of times per year to get what little "true darkness" we can for at least a short time.

How this all relates to a thesis in architecture I'll leave to you. But I'll wish you luck with it.

[swag72]

Hi Dom, welcome to SGL and good luck with your thesis. I'm a rather un-technical type, so I'll leave the other stuff to the more knowledgeable amongst us! My other get out of course is that I don't live in the UK and never look through a telescope either!!

Look forward to seeing you around

[Zuben Elgenubi]

Hello Dom, welcome to SGL.

Your project sounds very interesting, best of luck with it 

[kerrylewis]

Hello Dom. I'm an architect too - so firstly all the best with your studies.

Interesting topic you've chosen. It's not clear whether you intend to design a visitor centre as part of your thesis or deal with the issue more theoretically . If the former then a centre could demonstrate excellence in designing for less light pollution.

Because the big issue is how to reduce all the unnecessary lighting everywhere not just in a few selected areas. It would be very sad if the 'wonders of nature' are confined to special reserves and 'theme parks' . If you want to see tigers, for example, these days then you really have to go to a few carefully groomed areas. Astronomy must not go the same way. It must be something that people can continue to enjoy from their own backyard. The powers that be need to be educated to see that it really is a no-brainer (as they say) because we can save energy too. If you fly over this country at night all that light that you see is totally wasted.

Sorry that this is a bit rambling but what I'm trying to say is that you could tackle the individual issue of the design challenge of a dark sky site and also the bigger issue of how to make such sites redundant!

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Bedfordshire

[Mr Spock]

Welcome to SGL and good luck with your project

[Pig]

Hello & welcome

Shaun

[sologuitarist61]

Hello Dom, welcome to SGL 

[bingevader]

Best of luck, it sounds an interesting project.

Welcome to SGL!

[Digz]

Hi and welcome. As another Architect I wish you luck.

Does your thesis conclude your part 1 studies?

[todd8137]

Hi and welcome from me ,and enjoy the forums

Clear sky's always

Pat

[michigander]

Welcome to SGL, Dom!

Dana

[Charon]

Welcome aboard Dom.

[HIP3802]

Hi, Dom, and a warm welcome to SGL!  As light pollution is of major concern, and directly affects all of us on this forum in particular, perhaps you should post in the 'lounge' section where more people are likely to read and comment. It is certainly an interesting subject.

Martin

[dlape]

Thank you everyone for warm welcomes! 

I would like to write an update in response to several of your replies to here. 

to brantuk

Thank you for explaining me more about it. I do believe that wasting energy on unnecessary lighting is a serious environmental challenge already. But activity such as stargazing (on any level) is one of the less discussed matters. 

Of course, I am planning to get a bit advanced and get a telescope, but as a beginner, I was using 20 x 80 binoculars for a while. 

to kerrylewis

Hello fellow Architect! Thank you for this reply, I believe this should be the key idea in my approach to a project like this. In the bigger picture, people should enjoy this as brantuk mentioned above, in their back yards. But they still need to go somewhere where the skies are Darker to get a clean view. (I have been looking through my binoculars from the back yard and in parks at night, but its much better when i go out of town to do so.) With a scheme/project to come I was hoping to achieve some sort of public awareness, education aspect that would also promote places like Isle of Man, that has so many locations to do this. Even if it does become a "theme park", as long as it does not harm the natural darkness. 

Coincidentally, I have come across to this post at stargazers forum:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/206502-local-radio-astronomy-programme/?hl=%2Bmanx

to Digz

Hello! I have finished Part 1 few years back. This is my Part 2. 

Thank you everyone once again. Please do not hesitate to share your views if you wish, this all becomes a valuable aspect of my research. 

[kerrylewis]

Good luck Dom. I certainly didn't mean to decry special dark sky sites; they are great. But we need to look at the bigger picture, as you say, and ensure that in the future they are not the ONLY option.

[ronl]

Hi Dom and welcome,

I totally agree with Kerry, dark sky sites are a good thing to have, but most amateur astronomy is done from their

own back garden or as close to home as possible, this is why light pollution is our biggest bugbear, dark sites are

used now and again by stargazers, and most live along way from them, so light pollution is our main concern, plus

having a visitor centre at a dark sky location would only be needed on a small scale,and low key, as people would

be there to observe in dark sky conditions, not to be tourists.

Good luck with your final thesis project.  

[hippie]

Welcome to SGL Dom,  ,

Light pollution is the biggest bug bearer for most of us !,  I have to drive 14 mile round trips to find dark sky's near to me, Even then there is still distant light pollution  to put up with Grrrr!   .

To find total Dark sky's near me I would have to drive 100 mile round trips?,  To go all that way and then get clouded out after setting up isint funny so I don't go that far generally?. Which is frustrating as I cant use my scopes to there full potentinal ever!.

[Bizibilder]

Hello Dom and welcome to SGL!!