<\/p>\n
The Milky Way galaxy and star constellations shine especially bright in Norwood, and because of the limited light pollution, the town was designated in February as an International Dark Sky Community.<\/p>\n
Norwood is only the second town in Colorado to be granted the status by the International Dark Sky Association<\/a>, and the first on the Western Slope.<\/p>\n The Westcliffe-Silver Cliff community is Colorado\u2019s other Dark Sky designation. There are now 22 International Dark Sky Communities, 15 of them in the U.S.<\/p>\n Residents and town officials formed the Norwood Dark Sky Advocates and worked for three years to make a case for the designation. Rules were implemented controlling lighting in town and on future developments.<\/p>\n The town\u2019s location at 7,000 feet elevation on Wright\u2019s Mesa and its remote location, low population of 518 and dry climate are ideal conditions for clear night skies and stargazing.<\/p>\n The town produces very little light pollution, according to an IDA report. Mountains and plateaus shield it from the few distant urban light sources.<\/p>\n Co-chairs of Norwood Dark Sky Advocates, Creighton Wood and Bob Grossman, say that 80% of the world\u2019s population can no longer see the Milky Way because of city and industrial light.<\/p>\n The exquisite darkness of Norwood\u2019s night skies is a source of pride and a way to attract visitors.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Norwood, you can see the Milky Way year-round, even the faintest parts,\u201d says Grossman. \u201cIn the summer, you can see it even before the end of twilight. The rest of the night sky is truly glorious too.\u201d<\/p>\n To prove the dark skies met the designations\u2019 standards, the advocates conducted a Sky Quality Meter project over three years.<\/p>\n The darkest limit of the Unihedron SQM instrument is 22.0 units. Norwood\u2019s averaged annual value for all observation is 21.43 units, with a range 20.64 to 21.95, according to the International Dark Sky Association.<\/p>\n This designation and the recent increase in astro-tourism hopefully will inspire people to visit Norwood to view an amazing night sky few in the world now enjoy, Grossman said.<\/p>\n Amateur astronomers visit Dark Sky sites because they can observe very faint celestial objects.<\/p>\n \u201cI am pleased to welcome the town of Norwood, Colorado, into the International Dark Sky Places Program,\u201d stated Adam Dalton, IDA Dark Sky Places program manager.<\/p>\n \u201cAs one of the quickly growing number of Dark Sky Places designated on the Colorado Plateau, Norwood\u2019s policies and community actions will help to protect and preserve the region\u2019s incredible night skies for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information, visit darksky.org<\/a> or www.colorado.edu\/norwood-stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n jmimiaga@ the-journal.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" pollution creates ideal stargazing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5739,5786,5740,5737,5736,5735,5741,6181],"tags":[1363,44,13,28,29,1561],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astronomy","category-dolores","category-frontpage-lead","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-san-miguel-county","tag-astronomy","tag-dolores","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-san-miguel-county"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92722"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}