Photo by Judy Bandik, taken from Butler County, PA
Heritage
For thousands of years, we humans have been awed by the wonders of the night sky. We used the night sky to navigate ships while exploring the world. Seeing the stars drove ambition to create great wonders, and inspired many aspects of art, religion, philosophy, and science. With the creation of artificial light, we have been losing touch with our heritage.
Amateur Scientific Observation
While a majority of astronomical research can ignore lights, there are many aspects of research that require dark skies. Amateur astronomers can no longer observe objects from their backyard, and must drive potentially over one hundred miles to a dark sky spot.
Astronomy is an Important Industry
Because of Astronomy, we have many of the technological marvels in use today. One of them may include the device you are using to read this, if you are on a cell phone. Other advances include medical technologies such as the MRI or X-Ray machines.
Limiting Education
Because of the necessity to travel far distances to a dark sky spot, it is becoming harder for schools to host astronomy clubs, as some objects simply aren’t visible anymore.