Project aims to document dark skies and light pollution in Missouri

News-Leader

One of two types of devices used to measure how dark the sky is at night.

How much light pollution is making it harder to see the stars in Missouri?

That's what the Missouri Chapter of the International Dark-Sky Association hopes to find out, working with partners at Truman State University in Kirksville.

"We love the fact that we still have some dark skies in Missouri, and we want to protect that," said Don Ficken, president of the Missouri Dark Skies chapter. "We want to get a baseline of where we are right now with some actual scientific measurements. And, we have some areas in Missouri that are very dark. We want to be able to designate them as dark-sky places."

The project, which begins in October, seeks help from parks, schools and cities, which can apply to receive one of 12 Sky Quality Meters to measure how dark the sky is at their location.

The devices will look up toward a fixed point in the sky to log data for scientific analysis and to develop programs to reduce light pollution. Funding to buy the meters is provided by the NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium.

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Deployment of the dark sky meters will be determined by an application process starting this month, with sites selected based on a variety of criteria such as the scientific usefulness of the data and the potential for the installation site to implement programs to reduce light pollution.

Learn more about the program and application process at www.darkskymissouri.org/programs.

Ficken said he hopes the project will show how much light pollution is already affecting the ability to see stars in Missouri and lead to ways to reduce light pollution.

"Getting a Dark Skies place can really boost tourism," he said. "And reducing light pollution can save energy and help wildlife."

Lights at night can impact migrating birds and affect some land animals by disrupting their movements.