Borrego Springs, CA: The World's 2nd Dark-Sky Community

If you aren't looking at my Twitter feed you may not yet have heard the exciting news.

Borrego Springs, CA has just become the International Dark-Sky Association's second Dark-Sky Community. Borrego Springs follows the first Dark-sky Community, Flagstaff, AZ which received this status back in 2001.

You can read the press release on Borrego Springs from the IDA here (Adobe Acrobat required).

I have been working with the team in Borrego on this concept for the last two years and am very proud of the work that they have done. They already had some fantastic lighting in place and have also made many positive changes such as the one you see above.

Changes like the one above will help the residents of Borrego Springs to hold on to the wonderful resource that they have in the night sky. I am hopeful that the idea of a dark-sky community will spread and that other communities will want to preserve their views of the night sky too.

Not everyone can see a view such as is shown in this photo taken by Dennis Mammana, but once upon a time everyone could.

Congratulations to the residents of Borrego Springs and most especially the team that worked so hard for this. Good job!