Astrotourism

Star Gazers, Eclipse Chasers, and the Dark Sky Movement

Michael Marlin

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781637420676
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Astronomy & Astrophysics

This book explores the growth of the astrotourism, identifies star seeker trends, how the stars have shaped civilizations, and the budding space tourism industry.

In the span of a single lifetime, light pollution from Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) has severed our connection with the stars that we've had since the dawn of time. With the nocturnal biosphere significantly altered, light's anthropogenic influence has compelled millions of people to seek out the last remaining dark skies.

This book explores the growth of the astrotourism, identifies star seeker trends, how the stars have shaped civilizations, and the budding space tourism industry. Learn ways to develop a destination, find customers, and our relationship with the night sky. Meteor storms, eclipses, auroras, and other celestial phenomena have lured travelers for years and here the author expands the field of astrotourism with the inclusion of astronomical clocks, megaliths, and sundials, which track the movement of the stars.

CHAPTER 1

Defining Astrotourism

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.

—Theodore Roosevelt (26th President of the USA 1858–1919)

Astrotourism is such a new phenomenon the word has yet to be found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It was once called “astronomy tourism” and composed primarily of professional and amateur astronomers. In the last three decades, a dark sky has become a rare commodity, and people are traveling to experience a pristine night sky and all that it has to offer, one that is void of light pollution.

It is an emerging type of tourism, and the definition remains fluid. It can be described as a segment of the tourist market in which travelers journey to experience celestial and space occurrences; however, another definition may include anything that is space-themed, for example, viewing a rocket launch or a satellite or rocket re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere staying in a space-décor hotel, or visiting a planetarium.

This newly formed segment of the travel market may also include visiting archeological sites, where megaliths were built to measure the movements of celestial bodies; traveling to locations where cultures celebrate specific celestial events; viewing atmospheric anomalies, like sun dogs, zodiacal glow, green flash, rainbows, or moon halos. Also included, the measuring devices created by scientists that calculated celestial movements such as astronomical clocks, sundials, astronomical mechanisms, and works created by artists that depicted the sun, moon, stars, and other sky-born events. The leisure travel market off-planet Earth and into space is budding, bringing “high altitude” and “outer space” travel under the tent of astrotourism as a subset.

Astrotourism is now a thing.

—Condé Nast Magazine February 27, 2017

This textbook is for those who would serve this new segment of the travel market, such as tour operators, hotel or resort managers, an outfitter, a tour guide, or anyone in the hospitality industry who seeks to attract and accommodate the astrotourist. This new travel trend is attracting a new kind of tourist who is choosing a destination in order to enjoy the beauty of the universe they live in but one that they rarely see; when visiting “black sky” locations, astrotourists are distributing their money and ecological footprint more evenly across the planet.

With the rise of astrotourism, local governments pass laws and enforce ordinances to eliminate or dramatically curb light pollution like “Bill S.1937,” which is currently moving its way through the Massachusetts Senate. This oversight will protect our dark skies, a rapidly disappearing resource, and support and foster an economic engine that brings substantive revenues from travelers into otherwise overlooked regions.

Astrotourism, the latest trend in travel, sees travelers search for “black sky” locations on the ultimate stargazing holidays.

—Absolutely London

Astrotourism is the latest travel trend on the rise and one that Airbnb is championing. The company has seen significant year-on-year growth in places like: La Palma, Spain (90%), Antofagasta, Chile (327%), Kiruna, Sweden (134%), and Yarmouth, Canada (221%).

—Associated Press, July 11, 2018

If you are a typical North American or European, you have never seen the Milky Way or a night sky in its pristine state. How rare is it to see a Dark Sky? It is a jaw-dropping statistic that 80 percent of all the land on Earth and 99 percent of North America and Europe’s population lives under so much light pollution to make the Milky Way virtually invisible.¹

Scarcity drives up value, both intrinsic and economical. As of 2017, the World Population Review determined that about 1,109,599,402 people live in North America and Europe; of these, only 11,095, 994 have a view of a truly dark night sky and the myriad of stars there. Those who live in these dark sky areas are under the false assumption that everyone else sees this and are well-positioned to open the uninitiated eyes to reveal a night previously unknown to them.

How many stars are there to see? The first edition of the Bright Star Catalogue, published in 1930 by an American astronomer, Frank Schlesinger, identified the number of stars that could be viewed with the naked eye; this number was updated in subsequent editions. Due to multiple viewing factors (the presence of haze on the horizon, proximity of light pollution, humidity, the observer’s altitude, quality of one’s eyesight, etc.), there is some disagreement among scientists about the number of visible stars. According to the astronomer Dorrit Hoffleit, who wrote the last edition of Bright Star Catalog in 1964, humans can see about 9,095 stars with the naked eye. This includes all of the stars in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. As we can only be standing in one hemisphere, only half that number can be seen at any given time. With a pair of 50 mm binoculars, 100,000 stars are visible, and with a small, three-inch telescope, visibility explodes to 5,000,000!

Astrotourism is more than stargazing, as it includes traveling to see other celestial phenomena. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, is an attraction so spectacular and relatively predictable that multiple tour groups across the world have been in business for decades bringing people to see this cosmic event. According to Science Nordic,

Tromsø Norway has an increase in the number of aurora borealis tourists—partly because major international newspapers have featured articles about the aurora in northern Norway, and partly because of the amazing photos and videos that have gone viral on social media.

The speed that photos are being seen by people worldwide is astonishing compared to just 20 years ago. Once the domain of professional photographers who had to go through the time-consuming process of developing film before sending photos to a media outlet, which in turn had to print and distribute the content, can now be dispersed almost instantly by anybody with a mobile device and a social media account. Technology catapulted astrotourism like nothing else ever has.

Astrotourism includes eclipse chasers who will go to great lengths and distances to see an event that is only minutes in length, a reflection of how passionate astrotourists can be. It is estimated that 88 percent of American adults—about 215 million people—watched the 2017 solar eclipse, either in person or electronically.² It is over 50 million more than those who voted in the 2020 presidential election counting both sides. The astrotourist could be anybody who travels away from the city to experience the magic of a full moon.

The Moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars.

—Arthur C. Clarke

Only in today’s world of electric nights are we unaware of the potency of a moonlit night and how much illumination is cast upon the ground. All of us see the moon, even at the bottom of a high-rise skyscraper canyon that is our major metropolitan area, but we do not experience a moonlit evening and all of its ghostly appeal. To see the landscape in such clarity in only shades of gray, silver, and black stirs something primal in us. There is little or no need for artificial illumination to navigate the nocturnal landscape under a moon gorged with the sun’s reflective light. The moon’s shadow’s intensity will never be realized unless one travels to a place where the moon is the brightest object in the night sky.

A dark sky and all the stars it holds were once in everybody’s suburban backyard, but it has all but disappeared in the last 75 years. Because of light pollution, people have to journey, sometimes great distances and spend considerable money to see a starry sky. Starlight has taken millions of light-years to reach our eyes, and it is being “drowned out” at the finish line by streetlights and the sea of artificial light at night (ALAN). This veil of light has been pulled over our eyes, and the greatest portion of the world’s population can no longer experience the dark of night. The irony here is that anthropogenic light pollution has both spurred and catapulted the astrotourism industry while at the same time remains its greatest threat.

Scores of articles on astrotourism and light pollution show up in National Geographic, The Guardian, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and even a Jeopardy game show. “Astronomy buffs visit Idaho for the USA’s first dark sky reserve; oddly, part of it is this resort area with a bright name.” The answer in the form of a question, “What is Sun Valley?” The Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve gained this classification in 2017 from the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA); more on the IDA and its influence on astrotourism in Chapter 5.

Astrotourism and space tourism have sometimes been used interchangeably; however, a distinction separates the two. In the former, the tourist remains on the ground looking up; the latter takes the tourist up to look down. Chapter 6 is dedicated to the work in the field of tourist space flight that will “Boldly take tourists where no tourist has gone before.” The fact that you may know the reference (Star Trek) is proof that there is a craving for the cosmos in all of us, and it has been woven into the fabric of our cultures across the globe throughout time. Today, astrotourists are literally on a “star trek.”

CHAPTER 2

Our Link to the Stars

Of all things visible, the highest is the heaven of the fixed stars.

—Nicolaus Copernicus (astronomer)

Though astronomers, both professional and amateur, were the original astrotourists, many people seeking dark skies are neither. As humans, we are linked to the sky above and have been as long as we have had the awareness that our closest star makes a daily appearance in the east, rising like magic, emerging from the horizon. Early humans might have thought it was coming right out of the Earth, as it does appear to do so. As the sun ascends skyward, our shadows grow shorter with each passing hour until it reaches the zenith, when our shadow disappears and is born anew as the sun begins its journey back into the bed of the Earth’s edge.

The end of the day was determined once the sun went out of sight, but it changed color, echoing its appearance at dawn before it did. The rich saturated colors accompanied the appearance and disappearance of the clouds we attribute with a sun’s rise and set. For most people who leave a central metropolitan area to travel to an astrotourist destination, the sunrise and sunset can be some of the most memorable moments of their trips. This brings us to the phenomenon known as the golden hour and the blue hour, both of which are significant because of the photographic opportunities they provide.

The golden hour is the period of time the color of the sky goes from red and orange to yellow or, as its name suggests, golden tones, having a warm color temperature. Lighting is soft, diffused, and with little contrast since the sun is low in the sky. The sky has a deep blue hue with a cold color temperature and saturated colors during the blue hour. At the beginning (evening) and the end (morning), a gradient of colors, from blue to orange, can be seen right in the place of sunset and sunrise.¹

It could be said that the most prominent and daily dose of star watching occurs when we are tracking our sun. The vacation-of-choice for Baby Boomers was often going to sunny places or escaping the cold to chase our closest star for its warmth. The World Youth Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation recently surveyed more than 34,000 people from 137 countries and found that young travelers are not interested in the traditional sun, sea, and sand holidays as were previous generations.² They are more intrepid seekers, longing for the unusual, scarce, and strange. A night ablaze with stars is one of the true exotic views in the world today. Some destinations are specifically designed to cater to the astrotourist, and more are being designated each day.

Across the planet, travelers are now seeking out the world’s last-remaining dark skies where they can get a clear, unpolluted view of the stars.

—The Lonely Planet June 12, 2019

The ancients tracked our nearest star with such dedication that even scientists in modern times are left astounded by their accuracy, using nothing that resembled the sophisticated tools we have today. The oldest known calendar is dated to 8000 BCE. The original calendars were lunar in nature and based on the moon phases, not the sun’s movement.

Though the Gregorian calendar is used by most countries globally, a large segment of the population still adheres to the lunar calendar to indicate their holidays and New Year. Even some Western holidays are based on celestial events. In 325 CE, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. One of the most important holidays cele...