According to John Barentine, program manager for the International Dark-Sky Association, Tucson is a model city as it relates to making efforts toward reducing light pollution.

Barentine said, "Tucson is doing something that most cities aren't and that is as they convert their street lighting systems over from old technologies to the new LED technology, they're also reducing the overall emission of light. They're lowering by it almost 50 percent."

It's no surprise Tucson is a massive astronomy community. Barentine is also a fellow admirer of the starry night skies.

​"The fact that you can be not terribly far from the city center and you can still see the Milky Way at night from parts of town is a real testament to the hard work that people have done here for over 40 years in trying to keep our skies dark at night." 

Utah tourism ads use scenic views of slick rock and mountain lakes to lure visitors to the Beehive State from around the globe. Once here though, some are more amazed by what they see after the sun drops below the horizon.

On Wednesday, a representative from the International Dark Sky Association paid a visit to five parks on the Wasatch Back. Dr. John Barentine wanted to see if Wasatch Mountain, Jordanelle, East Canyon, Rockport or Deer Creek State Park warrant inclusion on the organization's inventory of places with stellar nighttime views.
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Those parks all have to contend with glow from nearby cities, but Barentine said that doesn't necessarily disqualify them. "There's something very valuable about these urban-adjacent parks in that you have a large number of people in the Salt Lake City area who have ready access to all these state parks out here," Barentine said. "It's important that some of the dark sky parks be located within short distance of cities to maximize the number of people who can come and see what that's like."