The Heritage of the night sky

12/03/26-The Heritage of the Night Sky – Dr. Dan Brown

Dan began by suggesting that the night sky links to light pollution, but posed the question as to what our understanding of ‘heritage’ is? The Royal family and Belvoir Castle were the responses, with which Dan agreed, saying it is solid real things, but is the skyscape ‘real?’ Stars are constant companions of humans over many years, back to the Mesolithic period. Current and ancient belief systems are based upon observing stars.  He made the analogy about our choice of North or South facing identical buildings. Again asking “how do we protect our dark skies?”  He showed slides of how one could identify cities and towns from satellite views of the earth, clearly showing London, Grantham, Nottingham and Newark.

Landscape Heritage generally are monuments, like Stonehenge, Arbor Low and 9 stone close (Peak District), the only remains of prehistoric humans, which shows who we are and where we came from. King Arthur’s Hall is another example (Neolithic, over 5500 years old).  How do we protect landscape heritage? Legislation (listed buildings), but there is also a strong public conscience. Protestors at Stanton Moor, Stonehenge proposed road tunnel, but they are important as changes may mean the loss of World Heritage site status.  Landscapes also include horizons, sky and sunsets. Back to Stonehenge and the path that points towards the Sun in the Winter Solstice (21^st December); another example is Gardom’s Edge Standing Stone(Baslow) which is tilted North South, emphasising the importance of cardinal directions.

He then referred to a dazzling pink sky, witnessed in Birmingham during a storm, but actually caused by light pollution from Birmingham Cities Football stadium.  LED lights, whilst good regarding energy use lead to more light pollution, which can be reduced with the correct  shielding. A number of questions followed, easily fielded by Dan.

Jane offered a Vote of Thanks saying that she felt we had all learnt a lot about culture, history and science. We would all be glancing upwards much more than we normally would following Dan’s passionate, informative and interesting presentation. Jane asked members to join her in a warm round of applause.                                      AR