Media

IFL Science (19 August 2024)

9/22/2024

The Night Sky Is In Danger And Astronomers Are Stepping Up To Protect It

“A problem for us with light pollution on the ground is the ongoing world transition to LED technology, which has made light at night very inexpensive to consume,” Dr John Barentine, the Executive Officer and Principal Consultant at Dark Sky Consulting, told IFLScience. “In the last decade, the brightness of the night sky has been rising around the world on the order of about 10 percent per year on average.”

“We don't want to roll back any progress,” Dr Barentine explained. “The satellite operators have a right to be in space, just as we have a right to access space for astronomy purposes. So we're actively working with them to try to find a solution that is as much of an agreement on the basics as we can reach to where they're able to conduct their activities without causing undue interference to what we're doing.”

Read more: https://www.iflscience.com/the-night-sky-is-in-danger-and-astronomers-are-stepping-up-to-protect-it-75615

SPACE.com (6 August 2024)

9/22/2024

SpaceX's new direct-to-cell Starlink satellites are way brighter than the originals

While DTCs are brighter objects, they move at a faster apparent rate and spend more time in Earth's shadow than regular Starlinks, which would offset some of their negative impact on astronomy observations, the study noted.

"I see it as a tradeoff in parameters rather than an absolute better/worse kind of situation," John Barentine, a principal consultant at Arizona-based Dark Sky Consulting who was not involved with the new study, told Space.com.

Read more: https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-direct-to-cell-satellites-light-pollution

New Humanist (2 July 2024)

7/3/2024

Cleaning up the cosmos

Experts have proposed various methods to dispose of existing orbital debris, such as using nets to capture junk, or harpoons and other satellites to help de-orbit dead satellites, but nothing has been implemented on the scale that would be needed were Kessler Syndrome to become a reality. “Nobody really that I’ve seen has any plans for what to do if that scenario develops, in terms of rapidly getting that debris out of orbit,” says John Barentine, principal consultant at Dark Sky Consulting. “It’s scary stuff but it’s not science fiction.”

Read more: https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/6295/cleaning-up-the-cosmos

Astronomy Magazine (July 2024)

7/3/2024

The fight against light pollution

With me was a small group of dark-sky activists, including John Barentine, a Tucson-based astronomer and consultant on dark-sky issues. From our vantage point, it was obvious which gas station was the larger emitter of light pollution. But, Barentine explained, both buildings met Tucson’s lighting code. I nodded, feeling depressed about the state of artificial light at night, or ALAN.

In the fight against light pollution, “constituents make a difference,” says Barentine. “What we’re missing is political will. We can reverse light pollution tomorrow. Nobody suffers when we decrease light pollution.”

Read more: https://www.astronomy.com/science/how-to-win-fight-against-light-pollution/

Forbes (6 March 2024)

7/3/2024

Explore The Night Sky With The 6 Best Binoculars For Stargazing

"I've been using the same pair of Tasco 10x50's for almost 30 years," says Barentine, principal consultant at Dark Sky Consulting, a firm that helps destinations earn International Dark Sky status. "A good pair that will last for decades can be had for under $100. It's not something that people should feel like they have to spend a lot of money on."

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/2024/03/06/view-stars-planets-and-galaxies-with-the-best-binoculars-for-stargazing/

KJZZ-FM (27 November 2023)

1/1/2024

Advocates fear wildlife, 'dark sky' effects when stadium lights turn on at U.S.-Mexico border

Conservationists say they are concerned about stadium lights being built along the U.S.-Mexico border in places known for their dark skies, and one nonprofit says the lights could be harmful to southern Arizona wildlife.

"The concern that we have about the lighting, is that it’s going into very remote areas, some of which are close to conservation areas along the border," said John Barentine, of Dark Sky International.

Read more: https://kjzz.org/content/1863538/advocates-fear-wildlife-dark-sky-effects-when-stadium-lights-turn-us-mexico-border

New York Times (7 October 2023)

1/1/2024

Gazing Into the Past and Future at Historic Observatories

John Barentine, an astronomer and consultant focused on dark skies research and conservation, believes that looking through a telescope can be transformative. “If I show somebody the moon through a telescope, they can, for the first time, envision it as a place,” he told me. “Now they’ve had a kind of direct experience with it.” But those rewards, he cautioned, are dependent on if and how we rein in light pollution on the ground.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/travel/historic-observatories.html

WIRED (6 October 2023)

10/10/2023

Amazon Is Going to Fill the Sky With Satellites. Astronomers Aren’t Happy

“BlueWalker was a shock to us as to how bright it was. We are also very worried about the impact to radio astronomy,” since one of its downlink frequencies is next to a protected radio band at 42.5-43.5 gigahertz, says John Barentine, one of the study’s coauthors and a conference attendee. A Tucson, Arizona-based astronomer, he is also the executive officer of Dark Sky Consulting, which advises companies and government officials on outdoor lighting to preserve dark night skies.

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/as-amazon-launches-project-kuiper-astronomers-debate-how-to-fix-a-satellite-filled-sky/

Scientific American (26 September 2023)

10/10/2023

The Loss of Dark Skies Is So Painful, Astronomers Coined a New Term for It

Given the harmful effects of light pollution, Aparna Venkatesan, a cosmologist at the University of San Francisco, and John Barentine, astronomer and science communicator at Dark Sky Consulting, have coined a new term to help focus efforts to combat it. Their term, as reported in a brief paper in the preprint database arXiv and a letter to the journal Science, is “noctalgia.” In general, it means “sky grief,” and it captures the collective pain we are experiencing as we continue to lose access to the night sky.*

Read more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-loss-of-dark-skies-is-so-painful-astronomers-coined-a-new-term-for-it1/

New York Times (25 September 2023)

10/10/2023

A Bay Area Community Wants to Protect Its Dark Skies

A study released this year, based on observations from around the world, found the number of visible stars to be decreasing by about 10 percent a year because of the increasing use of artificial light. At that rate, half of the stars that are visible when a child is born will be obscured by light pollution when the child turns 18, said John Barentine, an astronomer and former director of public policy for the International Dark Sky Association.

Barentine emphasized that we’re only beginning to understand the full impact of light pollution, which has been shown to harm wildlife, including the pollinating insects we rely on for our food supply.

“I do think this is one of the most significant environmental problems of our time that almost nobody knows about,” he said.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/us/bay-area-dark-skies.html