McDonald Observatory Dark Skies Initiative
Abstract
McDonald Observatory is a 500-acre satellite campus of the University of Texas at Austin, located in the heart of the Davis Mountains in far West Texas. This world-class astronomical research facility is home to some of the world's largest telescopes and darkest night skies. Over the past decade, the glow of nighttime lighting from increased oil and gas activity in and around the Permian Basin has begun to threaten these skies. In 2015, the Observatory adopted an All Sky Photometry system, originally developed by the National Park Service, that distinguishes between natural and artificial sources of light, and shows a brightening trend along the horizon in the direction of the Permian Basin. The Observatory is surrounded by seven counties, each of which have outdoor lighting ordinances intended to protect the dark night skies for ongoing astronomical research. Instead of pursuing enforcemnt, however, existing ordinances are used as vehicles for education and awareness. An ongoing effort, the Dark Skies Initiative, seeks to raise awareness within the oil and gas industry about the value of protecting the skies for McDonald Observatory. Adoption of night sky friendly lighting practices has the added benefits of cost-efficiency, improved visibility, and increased safety for workers in the oilfield. The traditional industry approach to lighting, i.e., "the brighter, the better", typically results in excessive, even debilitating glare, and light spilling offsite, wasted into the surround area and into the sky. The use of shielded and properly aimed "full-cutoff" light fixtures both helps protect the night skies over the Observatory, and serves the industry by directing light to where it is needed and wanted, not into workers eyes. In recent years, with the cooperation of numerous oil and gas companies, lighting demonstrations in the oilfield have successfully shown the multiple advantages of dark sky friendly practices. In its "Notice to Operators", reminders from the state's oil and gas regulatory agency of the need to protect the night skies for the Observatory published in 2016 and again in 2019, the Railroad Commission of Texas concluded: "The solutions can be simple and cost effective and can actually improve nighttime visibility and increase worker safety". In 2017, the Permian Basin Petroleum Association partnered with McDonald Observatory to publish "Recommended Lighting Practices" for the oil and gas industry. In 2018, the American Petroleum Institute endorsed the document by becoming a coequal author, and a major operator produced a complementary video to focus on the crucial visual nature of the topic.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23540104W