ANSA NEWS!
Arkansas Natural Sky Association
ANSA is a membership-based 501(c)3 non-profit & the Arkansas chapter of DarkSky International.
🎥 Governor Sanders recently shared her commitment to preserving Arkansas' beautiful night skies for future generations. We're grateful to see this issue receiving attention at the highest level here in the Natural State.
💡 Protecting our dark skies is something that transcends politics. It’s all about lighting responsibly. Reducing light pollution helps conserve energy, improves health for humans and wildlife, promotes outdoor recreation, and preserves the natural beauty that makes Arkansas special.
👍 Let Governor Sanders know that we applaud her interest in protecting natural skies in the Natural State. Click the link below to watch/like her video - and please LIKE and SHARE this post!
📣 More importantly, take a moment to contact the Governor's office. Use this opportunity to express your support for efforts to reduce light pollution, encourage dark-sky friendly lighting practices, and champion Arkansas State Parks and cities in pursuing DarkSky Place certifications where appropriate.
Contact the Governor:
☎️ Phone:
(501) 682-2345
📬 Mail:
Office of the Governor
State Capitol, Suite 250
500 Woodlane Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
💻 Online:
governor.arkansas.gov/interact/contact-the-governor/
✨ Together, we can help ensure future generations of Arkansans will look up and experience a sky filled with stars.
🛰️ From ruined photos to vanishing darkness, satellites are transforming the night sky - and not always for the better.
"Look up soon after sunset, and Starlinks and other satellites are everywhere. As primarily a naked-eye stargazer and binocular astronomer, it doesn't particularly bother me, but for astrophotographers and both visual and radio astronomers, the mega-constellation era is a tragedy. Being photobombed by satellite streaks in images is a big problem, but so is radio interference in low Earth orbit. Astrophotographers can stack images and use software to remove trails (as if post-processing wasn't already time-consuming enough), but for astronomers, mega-constellations can hugely affect spectroscopic data and wide-field surveys, such as the Rubin Observatory.
Within a few years, there's likely to be about 40,000 Starlinks, but with Amazon and other companies preparing rival mega-constellations, a phase of hyper-expansion is about to begin. It's going to get a lot, lot worse. As with Iridium satellites, mega-constellations of satellites will eventually de-orbit, burn up and disappear from the night sky, though probably not en masse in our lifetimes."
Full article from Jamie Carter for Space.com at the link below.
My quiet obsession with satellites — and how they're ruining everything
www.space.com
From ruined photos to vanishing darkness, satellites are transforming the night sky — and not always for the better.