Section
Westhavelland in Germany, the Brecon Beacons Dark Sky Reserve, Great Sand Dunes, the small town that wrote dark-sky into its zoning.
Dark Sites
At 2,877 metres in the central French Pyrenees, a working observatory and a heritage hotel share a granite summit. France's first dark-sky reserve, certified in 2013, surrounds them. A spring evening at the cable-car station above Bagnères-de-Bigorre.
Dark Sites
In 1988 the Spanish parliament passed a national statute to protect the night sky over the Canary Islands. Nearly forty years later, the law remains the strictest sky-protection legislation in Europe. A visit to the Roque de los Muchachos.
Dark Sites
Four thousand three hundred and sixty-seven square kilometres of New Zealand's South Island form the world's largest accredited dark-sky reserve. A late autumn night at Mount John Observatory above Lake Tekapo.
Dark Sites
On the edge of an erosion crater in the Negev sits one of the darkest small towns in the Mediterranean basin. A night at the Ramon Crater observatory with a school group from Beersheva.
Dark Sites
In 2019 a town of 3,400 in the upper Connecticut River valley quietly adopted one of the most stringent municipal dark-sky ordinances in the United States. Seven years on, the planning office reports back.
Dark Sites
The dune field of southern Colorado is one of the darkest accredited sites in the National Park system. A March night with a ranger, an amateur from Pueblo, and a wind that did not let up until 02:00.
Dark Sites
Wales's only Dark Sky Reserve covers 1,344 square kilometres of common land and high moor. A week of observing from a small farmhouse near Libanus produced two clear nights, one partial, and four written off to weather.
Dark Sites
Two hours west of Berlin, a wet flatland of polders and pumping stations has become the darkest accredited reserve in the country. A long Saturday in May, spent listening to cranes and watching the zodiacal light come up over a marsh.