A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff
Credit and Copyright: Dan & Cindy Duriscoe, FDSC, Lowell Obs., USNO

Flagstaff, AZ: The world’s first lighting ordinance was passed on April 15, 1958 by Flagstaff City Council. It banned advertising search lights that threatened to mar the night sky for professional astronomers. 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of that historic event and the beginning of the dark skies movement that is reducing unnecessary light pollution in many parts of the world.

On October 24th, 2001, the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) designated the City of Flagstaff as the world’s first “International Dark-Sky City.”

The current dark skies over Flagstaff not only enable local astronomers to decode the universe but allow local sky enthusiasts to see and enjoy a tepestry contemplated previously by every human generation. This image, pointing just east of north, was taken a few weeks ago at 3am from Fort Valley, only 10K from central Flagstaff. Visible in the above spectacular panorama are the San Francisco Peaks caped by a lenticular cloud. Far in the distance, the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, highlighted by the constellations of Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cygnus.

For more information about our Dark Skies visit the website. Also, you can download this really cool picture for your screensaver here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:38 am by Leslie Connell and is filed under What's New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.