Saturday, April 5, 2008 From 7 PM - 11 PM
:: FESTIVAL HISTORY ::
Dark Sky Festival at Harmony Receives 2004 Sky & Telescope Magazine's Astronomy Day Recognition
We are proud that in our second year of holding the Festival we were given Honorable Mention from Sky & Telescope in their national 2004 Astronomy Day awards. We are now in our fifth year and getting better all the time. The following excerpt from that Astronomy Day award package provides an overview of the Dark Sky Festival at Harmony.
Our Astronomy Day event was promoted as the Dark Sky Festival at Harmony. What was unconventional about this event, as an event intended to introduce the public to astronomy and related issues, was that it was billed as much as a community picnic as it was a more serious science fair. We believe that giving a festive theme to the event created a broader appeal to people and so exposed more people to astronomy than a focused star party or science center might. Plus the Festival's theme was not just the astronomy values of the night, but the value of keeping dark skies to protect wildlife activities along with the simple aesthetic values that being outside at night can bring. Any expansion of the dark sky theme was seen as an opportunity to broaden participation, as long as it didn't detract from the central educational purpose of the event.
The entire festival was held outdoors in low light conditions on the streets, sidewalks and park of the Harmony Town Square and demonstrated that more than a thousand people can do something like this safely with only reasonable lighting levels and no glaring security or other excessive lighting. We also think that using a town square setting and having conventional indoor restrooms and other air conditioned space available made the event more comfortable for folks who might not be attracted to an open field or parking lot.
Harmony is a new community being built in metropolitan Orlando, Florida and was chosen as the site for several reasons:
• Dark skies. The Harmony Town Square, where the event
was held, is in an area rated as Class 4 on the Bortle
Scale of Light Pollution.
• The developer's commitment to protecting dark skies. For
example, all street lighting, any park lighting and other
public lighting uses full cut off fixtures. Private residential
and commercial lighting is also held to this standard and the
new Harmony High School football field and parking lots
have shielded lighting.
• The Central Florida Astronomical Society uses Harmony as one of their two monthly observing locations in
Central Florida.
• The Harmony Institute, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization and the primary event sponsor, is located at
Harmony and advises the Harmony developer on lighting and other measures to protect natural systems.
The Dark Sky Festival was held entirely out of doors from 6 PM to 11 PM on April 24, 2004. An estimated 1200-1500 hundred people attended.
The purpose of the event was to expose the general public to the marvels of astronomy and the importance of protecting dark skies - not just for astronomy purposes, but also for the values that darkness provides to area wildlife.
To do this, the program had several important parts:
Orientation to Children
If children grow up with an appreciation for astronomy, dark skies and enjoying the outdoors at night they'll grow into responsible adults who value and take action to protect these things. Therefore the program had parts oriented to children:
The program began with a performance by the Arthur J. Gallagher elementary school of songs and poems pertaining to stars and planets. An elementary teacher followed by reading a bedtime story featuring the planets to all the children in the audience. The school also had an exhibit displaying their recent projects on the solar system.
Mr. Jim Harrington, longtime space shuttle launch director at the Kennedy Space Center, spoke on his experiences at KSC and fielded questions related to NASA's space program and aerospace as a career. Exhibitors included a high school robotics club - not an astronomical subject per se, but one with a following of youth who were receptive to learning more about astronomy.
Other exhibitors included Reptile World's Serpentarium, and Fly by Night, two commercial enterprises who brought reptiles and bats who rely on the darkness and are affected by lights. Handlers gave personal interpretation to the children and adults.
The 23 exhibitors and displays that bordered the event area also reinforced these themes.
Practical Information
It was important to present information to the public on things they could do on their own. For example, the event included several speakers with slide shows that offered ways that people can get started astronomy as a hobby and steps that can be taken to control nighttime lighting. Included were:
Mr. George Fleenor, representing the Florida section of the International Dark Sky Association, on practical ways to control wasted lighting at home;
Mr. Robert Vogel of the Central Florida Astronomical Society (CFAS) who explained how to select a telescope or binoculars and how to get started in astronomy as a hobby;
Dr. Terry Oswalt, a professor of space science and astronomy at the Florida Institute of Technology oriented the audience to the sky by pointing out the planets, stars and constellations overhead. CFAS members also had 12-15 telescopes set up. The Brevard Community College planetarium was also present with a telescope. This allowed people to see objects in the sky and have someone there to guide them. People were lined up to look through the scopes from the time that it got close to dark to the event's close. A solar viewing scope was put into service before sunset. Judging from the exclamations overheard, this was the first time that many people had looked through a telescope.
Community Action
Commissioner Chuck Dunnick of the Osceola County Board of County Commissioners used the event to announce that the county was beginning work on an ordinance to require new lighting in the county to be protective of dark skies. In a county that includes portions of Walt Disney World and has extensive brightly lit tourist commercial uses, this was a significant event in itself. Further, Commissioner Dunnick announced that the lighting at all County facilities would be retrofitted as needed to better protect the night sky.
Relaxation and Entertainment
An important value of gazing at the night sky is the mental rejuvenation that it brings. The evening ended with recording artist Jonn Serrie performing his own style of "future music." People had been encouraged to bring blankets and picnics for lawn use in the amphitheatre and Mr. Serrie's performance outdoors on an unlit stage provided a perfect setting for minds to wander through the stars.
A jazz band played earlier in the evening while people were eating and still moving around freely during the daylight.
Sponsors
There were four sponsors of the Dark Sky Festival:
- The Harmony Institute has a local and national member base of about 500. Its staff of two formed the core of the planning team and 15 local members participated during the event.
- The Central Florida Astronomical Society member base includes more than 200, with 12 to 15 of those participating in the event with their telescopes and their expertise. An additional member helped extensively with planning and served as a speaker.
- The Florida Chapter of the International Dark Sky Association participated through its chairman who assisted in program planning, general technical advice and served as a speaker.
- The Town of Harmony provided the venue for the event, provided three staff members and its publicity team for planning and provided eight additional staff members for event support the day of the festival.
With four sponsoring organizations, 23 exhibitors and food providers, musicians, individual speakers and children from five elementary grades contributing to the Dark Sky Festival we were pleased to see this event become such a cooperative effort in only its second year. The fact that attendance at least tripled over last year was also encouraging. But the approach of taking what is sometimes seen as the stuffy or even "geeky" science of astronomy and turning it into a festival with broad appeal, while staying true to its educational mission, we think is something notable. It resulted in an event that the organizers, and the larger community, are proud of.
The fact that the county government has been made aware of the value of dark skies as a result of last year's Festival and the lighting demonstration that the Harmony community has made, to the point that it is the first in the Orlando area to take on a strict outdoor lighting ordinance, is especially noteworthy and will have far reaching implications for central Florida..
