As a long time amateur astronomer, I think it’s important to preserve what’s left of our Hill Country dark skies. You don’t have to have a telescope or even binoculars. It does help if you can view the sky that has as few bright lights as possible away from San Antonio sky glow which now encroaches into our sacred Hill Country.
Kendall County Friends of the Night Sky is helping to show residents and businesses how to be Dark Sky Friendly. In the outback of Kendall County our skies are relatively pristine (dark) at night. Looking south that sky glow is made up of brightly lit billboards, new and used car lots, unshielded or poorly designed streetlights, neighborhood lighting, business lights and their related advertising signage.
We could drastically reduce the electrical demand if we just had lighting where we needed it (downward facing). Many people over light their property thinking of the security angle. The way to make your home or business more secure is with lighting that only comes on when motion is detected. It is quite a deterrent when an unexpected light suddenly comes on via a motion detector.
The Hill Country has outstanding night skies, recognized many times over by the International Dark Sky Association and others around the world. The night skies here are a part of our identity, celebrated in song, are part of a hospitable habitat for our region's song birds, fireflies, and other beloved wildlife, and are even crucial to our national security, as military training at Camp Bullis is dependent on naturally dark skies in its environs. The region's rapid growth, paired with conventional approaches to outdoor lighting, pose serious threats to our night skies.
Thankfully, Kendall County is part of a region-wide movement to preserve our night skies. In recent years, the Hill Country Alliance has supported the formation and ongoing activities of Friends of the Night Sky groups in seven Hill Country counties, local governments, electric cooperatives, state parks, chambers of commerce, are all contributing to this important, exciting, and thoroughly Texan effort.
There are many resources that promote night skies education,including: www.kendallcountynightsky.org; www.hillcountryalliance.org; www.darksky.org.
