Abstract
The national parks of the US have some of the darkest skies in the country, offer some of the greatest vistas for astronomical viewing, and have numerous astronomy outreach programs. In 2006 the National Park Service (NPS) adopted a policy to “preserve, to the greatest extent possible, the natural lightscapes of parks, which are natural resources and values that exist in the absence of human-caused light.”
Those qualities that draw us to the parks by day – their unspoiled vistas and backcountry wilderness – also make them especially beautiful at night…to see all these sights together is a sight no longer possible from much of our developed world.
Tyler Nordgren
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Treadwell, T. (2017). Astronomy in the National Parks. In: Astronomy Adventures and Vacations. The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50002-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50002-7_5
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