Nevada Considers Dark Sky Program

The skies in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert are among the darkest in the country.

Across the world, locations with dark skies are a rare and vanishing resource. Glance on a map of the United States, and it becomes apparent that the West has some of your best odds of finding ideal dark conditions for astronomy, astrophotography, and night landscape photography. With few cities, positioned at the edges of a large state, Nevada is ground zero.

You can zoom around the state and more, and even see light pollution trends over time on the interactive light pollution map on the LightTrends site.

With interest in after-dark activities like night photography growing, and the places to go practice them shrinking, it’s a race for the best locations to identify themselves while their appeal is still intact. Nevada has an ideal topography: vast swaths of open space, with dozens of mountain ranges isolating each basin from any small amount of light pollution in the next.

This has been a closely-held secret for many for a number of years, but the Nevada Department of Conservation and Recreation would like to help communities that want a little extra share of tourism dollars get the word out. The proposed program would help communities and parks understand how they can get recognition under a program such as the one in place at the International Dark Sky Association. They have already recognized Death Valley National park and Great Basin National Park as having the right qualities and attention to controlling light, as well as the remote and dark Massacre Rim Wilderness Study Area in northwest Nevada.

An article on the Dark Sky Program bill SB52 was written by Scott King for the Sierra Nevada Ally: Dark Sky Program Offers Unique Opportunity for Nevada.

Reno TV station KOLO8 aired a video segment summarizing the bill, including time-lapse sequences from Nevada locations: Legislation targets the night sky.

The bill, if passed, would set up a system where ranches, small towns, reserves or sanctuaries could apply for a dark sky designation. What qualifies as such a designation would also be established.

The state will work with the International Dark Sky Association which has already designated the Great Basin National Park and Massacre Rim Wilderness Study areas here in Nevada as international dark sky places.

Here’s a video feed of the online Natural Resources Committee hearing on bill SB52 this week:

Full text of the bill appears here.

Hopefully the program will help Nevada communities recognize the economic value of dark sky tourism, and inform and encourage them to protect the resource, so those of us already bringing visitors to the state for its dark skies can continue to do so for many years to come as dark sky tourism grows.

We’ve been exploring the lands can dark skies of Nevada for quite some time, developing routes in itineraries that we can bring workshop clients on. To see the dates we have scheduled so far, visit the Nevada Workshops page on our Web site. If you want different dates or have a group to bring, contact us and let’s see what we can work out!

1. Southern California Night Sky, 2. Sky Car, 3. Truly Dark Skies, 4. Milky Way Arch Panorama, Central Nevada, 5. Milky Way Over Cathedral Gorge, 6. Joshua Trees, Milky Way, Airglow, and…, 7. Milky Way Arch Over Walker Lake, 8. This Week in Nevada, 9. Milky Way Over Stamp Mill, 10. Nevada at Night, 11. Airglow, Meteor and Milky Way Over Abandoned Mine, 12. Milky Way Over Charcoal Kilns, 13. Las Vegas and Ridgecrest Light Pollution from Death Valley, 14. Black Rock Desert Reflection, 15. Headframe, Mill, and Milky Way, 16. Milky Way Over Historic Hangar