Magic Belles

One of Star Belle’s favourite activities is gazing up at the clear night sky and seeing millions of stars. One of the best places to do this is from a Dark Sky Park – let’s find out more…

Fun Facts

Stars over Galloway Park
Thank you Paul Willows
for the lovely photo.

• A dark sky park is a special area that isn’t polluted by outdoor lighting from street lamps and buildings. This means the skies are crystal clear and, at night, you can see billions of stars.
• There are dark sky parks all over the world. The main one in the UK is the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park in Scotland. At night, you can see more than 7000 stars there, including the Milky Way!
• There are special buildings in dark sky areas called observatories. In Galloway, there’s the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory. They have big telescopes to look out into space at the stars and planets. These observatories look a bit like Star Belle’s house, Twinkle Towers!
• Most observatories are open to visitors, so you can learn more about the stars. You can even look through a telescope and see the stars up close!
• It’s important to protect dark skies and the night-time environment, because the regular cycle of natural day light and darkness helps animals and plants to stay healthy.
• You can protect the night skies by using Dark Sky-friendly lighting. This is lighting that shines on to the ground where it is needed and not into the sky where it causes a big glow.

Parent Note: If you are interested in learning more about dark skies, you can visit the International Dark Sky Association’s site.

We hope you’ve learnt lots about dark skies – the more we have, the more stars we can see twinkling and that makes Star Belle very happy! With love and star dust from your fairy friends in Bellevue xxx