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What a great night at the DSO! Over 150 guests and some of the best seeing conditions for Saturn and the Moon! Despite ample moonlight we had plenty to show. Thanks to the students, DSO crew and the Lansing Group for helping out. Star Sherpa was there helping with digital views. #AppState #Boone

Another DSO public night. Star Sherpa aka "The Sherp" showing guests astrophotography processing.

Julie's final mushroom program at Doughton Park for the season. She had such a nice collection and even provided a sample of Jack-o-Lantern to hopefully propagate on an old oak stump for future observations of bioluminescence.

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Some excellent examples of really bad lighting in downtown W. Jefferson. Can you spot them? #ashecounty #northcarolina #lightpollution

Bloody brilliant. #LED #safety #cars

Why does leaving the city make the stars explode into view? Light pollution follows a steep exponential curve. Moving from suburban Bortle 5 to pristine Bortle 1 cuts skyglow by 95%! In Bortle 1, the Milky Way is so thick it casts shadows. #Astronomy #DarkSkies #Stargazing

Source: Spotify - Web Player: Music for everyone open.spotify.com/episode/2IJe...

Congratulations to Deborah for acquiring a wonderful pair of Pentax 20x60 binos on parallelogram mount. Excellent for astronomical observation as well as wildlife viewing. #astro #wildlife #ashecounty

Leander Hutton's recommend small scope setup made with stuff you can actually buy today! SVbony SV225 mount, SV225T tripod and SV225H pier. About $250 all in on the hardware, $350 for a 102mm OTA. Great considering weight and portability. Thanks Leander! #Astronomy #Astro

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6 copies of the newly published Transforming Night: The History and Science of Light Pollution by Sara B. Pritchard received! Two copies to Ashe DSC, 3 copies to GLAD and the DarkSky Working Group, and another copy to the Mayor and Aldermen of Lansing. #Science #LightPollution #Night #NorthCarolina

diglloyd blog: Spectral Distribution: Mid-Day Just Past Sunset share.google/fpYP3c4CYYWe...

"One of these graphs is not like the others" which lights have the greatest blue wavelengths? Can you identify the LED spectrum vs Hg Vapor, HPS, and Metal Halide? #lighting #lightpollution

Lansing Day was a blast. We shared information about the prospect of Lansing becoming an IDSC and shared different views of the sun which was surprisingly active. #Lansing #DarkSky #Science

Deborah seen helping out with recording the spectral distribution on the few municipality lights in Lansing. This data helps tell a story when Lansing becomes an IDSC. We make impact maps which show the amount of unnecessary and harmful blue wavelengths put out by each fixture. #science #lighting

4k low-light timelapse on David's moonflower tonight to see if anything interesting shows up. Fingers 🤞. #Nocturnal #Night #Flowers

Part of the Cygnus X complex, Sh2-101 is a region of active star formation shaped by ionizing radiation and stellar winds from young, massive stars. The bright fronts trace the interaction between ionized gas and the surrounding molecular material. #space #astro #astrophotography

Checks out. Useful, targeted, low-level, controlled, and warm colored. 😆 #Lighting #DarkSky

David says his moonflower just bloomed. #nocturnal #darksky #pollinators

Leander has been experimenting with 50-130mm focal lengths achieving good Milky Way details. Pictured is an area just north of Aquila with lots of dark pockets using the 70mm end of a 70-200 on a DX body. Photo Credit: Leander Hutton #Astrophotography #astronomy #highcountry

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Workin' on the night moves... #darksky #lighting #floydcounty

The Lansing Working Group/Ashe DSC assisting the Blue Ridge Rising Project get an outdoor lighting audit on the town of Floyd,VA. Beverly Hill, Public Health Emergency Coordinator New River Health District and Floyd County advocate is seen here taking readings. Thank you, Beverly!

Two views capture opposite sides of the Veil Nebula, glowing remains of a massive star that exploded thousands of years ago which trace the expanding shock front of an ancient supernova as delicate filaments of energized gas stretch across the constellation Cygnus. #Astronomy #NightSky #Space

Last night's results of the Northern Lagoon Neb from David Heflin.

200th post! One of our more seasoned astrophotographers had fun using a late 70s/early 80s vintage Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm lens which is basically a tiny Maksutov for Thursday night's lunar eclipse: www.mir.com.my/rb/photograp... Photo credit: Leander Hutton #astrophotography #astronomy

Tonight's Lunar Eclipse in HDR. #Astronomy #Astro #Eclipse

Saturn taken with a used DSLR! Not bad. Not bad at all. #Astronomy #Saturn #Astrophotography

#astro #astronomy #astrophotography Saturn is rising earlier and earlier! Between the clouds last night on the parkway-- Meade 8 inch SCT HD and QHY5iii585mc

Another good evening at the DSO. David is helping visitors appreciate some of the faint objects out there under a moonlit sky. #AppState #Astronomy

We can always depend on our local astrophotographer, lead DarkSky consultant, and outreach specialist David Heflin to supply us with striking images of the night sky from Ashe County. Thank you, David! #astrophotography #astronomy

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Knights of the Round Table! Lansing's very own DarkSky Working Group hard at work making the very first International DarkSky Community in North Carolina. #DarkSky #NorthCarolina

The Plumage of Shroomage!: A collage of macroscopic shots of mushroom "plumage" collected by Julie Mullis of the NPS. #Lightpollution #Fungi #Mushrooms Artificial Light at Night can disrupt plant-fungal interactions and alter mycorrhizal communities: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Two metrics worth measuring when informing communities about their lighting situation: Melanopic Equivalent Daylight Illuminance (M-EDI) which measures circadian disruption potential in humans and the percent of blue wavelengths in the spectral distribution x luminosity which describes eco impact.

The New River's nocturnal salamander (E. Hellbender) is a great influence to this initiative. Please follow and share. #health #nature #animals

Major Shroomage in the high country this week. Check out Mount Jefferson, Price Lake, and Doughton Park this weekend. We are hoping to see bioluminescent "Foxfire" species. Happy hunting. #mushrooms #darksky #ecology

DSI-NC and a few members of the working group helping to promote DarkSky practices at Moth Mania at the Daniel Boone Native Gardens. Next year we will consider holding a moth/nocturnal pollinator appreciation event in Lansing during Moth Week. Thanks guys! #Moth #DarkSky #NorthCarolina