 |
 |
||
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||
 |
Space Topics: Planetary AnalogsStars Above, Earth BelowAstronomy and Space Exploration in America's National Parks
|
|||||||||
Ursa Major above Isle au Haut
The sun sets to the west of my little cove on Isle au Haut. One of the darkest locations on the East Coast, clouds moved past throughout the night, preventing me from making any measurements of the true night sky brightness. Credit: Tyler Nordgren |
Acadia National Park, Maine -- This entry is a little
later than normal. Earlier in the week I was down in Orlando at this years’ Division
of Planetary Sciences meeting. I had the opportunity to meet with folks
who actually read this blog and had some helpful suggestions on even more
interesting things I could say about tides. I then jetted back to Maine
where I caught the last mail boat out to Isle au Haut, Acadia’s version
of backcountry. There on the southern end of a small island in the Gulf
of Maine, home to only about 30 or so year-round families of lobstermen,
there is an extension of Acadia National Park. It has only one small ranger
station, staffed by a couple island residents, and a campground of about
a half dozen lean-tos. The park service keeps a small cabin located pretty
much equidistant from just about everything else on this lonely little
island, and that’s where I spent the last couple of days. No running
water, no electricity, just me alone in the woods. There is virtually no
place darker along the eastern coast of the U.S., and it made a good place
to get over the Orlando crowds and think about what Acadia is doing to
protect its skies.
Acadia is serious about preserving its beautifully starry skies. Look at an image of the United States at night and you can easily see that east of about Oklahoma City, the density of American life has long since washed away any truly pristine night skies. While there are still a few places on the East Coast where stargazers congregate for good stargazing, the single largest area of near pristine darkness is located in Maine. As the first national park east of the Mississippi, and the only one made up entirely of land donated by private individuals, the folks at Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island (MDI) know about the necessity of protecting natural beauty amid the surrounding pressures of growth and development.
Light Pollution above the Eastern U.S.
Satellite imagery of light pollution above the eastern United States. Note that no black regions exist in the U.S. east of central Kansas. Acadia National Park is the entire collection of red regions in Maine (Isle au Haut is the smaller detached portion to the southwest). Credit: Chad Moore / National Park Service |
Light Pollution on Mount Desert Island (MDI)
A map of the average sky brightness above MDI where the majority of Acadia National Park is found. The bright area to the northeast is Bar Harbor, which is the island's largest town, and sits just outside the park boundary. The two brighter areas to the south are Northeast Harbor on the right and Southwest Harbor on the left. Credit: Peter Lord / Island Astronomy Institute |
The Sky above Cadillac Mountain
Cadillac Mountain is the spot where visitors come to see the sunset. During certain times of the year. it is the first place in the continental United States to see the sunrise. Lights to the north are the combined pollution of nearby Ellsworth and more distant Bangor. The fall Milky Way arches beautifully across the zenith, attesting to the darkness of the Acadia's skies. Credit: Chad Moore / NPS Night Sky Team |
Resource managers at Acadia, the same people who fight to preserve the native plants, animals, and wilderness experiences amid growing developments along increasingly attractive oceanfront property, are also the ones actively working to save this last remaining island of eastern darkness. By retrofitting their own lights within the park and by working with local community groups and the surrounding towns and businesses, they have set themselves the goal of eventually being designated as a Dark Sky Park by the International Dark Sky Association. Their ceremonial kickoff to this effort is the replacement of a glaringly bright light located atop 300-meter (1,500-foot) Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain on the eastern seacoast of the United States.
The principal community group helping in this effort is the Island Astronomy Institute, founded by Peter Lord, a retired aerospace engineer. His nonprofit organization works closely with the resource staff at Acadia and is dedicated to preserving starry skies in this area of Maine for the enjoyment of future generations. Armed with Sky Quality Meters, small handheld devices increasingly popular with amateur astronomers that measure the average sky brightness at a particular location, he sent local eighth-graders around the island to measure the brightness of the sky in as many locations as possible. Using commercial software they converted their measurements in magnitudes per square arcsecond into a map showing the brightest and darkest regions on the island.
Just within the last three weeks Peter’s group became the proud recipient of a spare camera system used by the members of the NPS Night Sky Team. His group is the first to acquire a system like this from the park service and so for they will be able to actually monitor changes in the light pollution over the park with time. They will be the first people in the country to be able to actually see how the lights above Acadia (and eventually all of Maine) grow or dim based upon the actions of those folks attempting to preserve the starry skies here. And there are a lot of those folks. In conversations I have had with park personnel, park visitors, local business owners, and a very nice person I met on the mail boat, everyone here is aware of just how precious their skies are and what a unique opportunity they have to preserve them.
My time here is almost at an end. With the changing of the leaves, the 2007 season finally comes to a close in Acadia. A couple weeks ago I went to the last astronomy talk over at the Blackwoods Campground. Park ranger Sierra Coons had been alternating all season between stargazing on the beach and slide shows in the campground. On the last night of the year I saw her talk about everything from Mars, to the Milky Way to extrasolar planets. And yes, she ended with a discussion of light pollution. As she sees it, if you can’t see the stars as you are growing up, you aren’t liable to grow up wanting to learn more about them. Seeing as she has a degree in planetary science from Berkeley, she knows a little something about the matter.
Next week I head down to Great Smoky Mountains. I’ve had a few folks ask if I will be giving any public talks down there, but unfortunately I don’t know yet. Look for signs in the Visitor Centers and chances are you’ll know just about as soon as I will.
[ what is this? ]