Bosscha Observatory and islands with the Darkest Sky in the World

Excursions along 15 km to the north of the city of Bandung, West Java to enjoy the beauty of the stars in the night sky while studying astronomy, an educational travel tours located in the plateau area of the small town of Lembang, the biggest observation of star in Southeast Asia.

Bosscha Observatory is at the geographical coordinates 107° 36' east longitude and 6° 49' south latitude in the land area of 6 hectares at an altitude of 1310 meters above the surface. Long ago during the reign of the Dutch East Indies this named Bosscha Sterrenwacht observatory built by the Nederlandsch-Indische Vereeniging Sterrenkundige (NISV) or the Union Star Dutch East Indies in 1923.

Karel Albert Rudolf Bosscha, a landlord at the Malabar tea plantation, willing to be the major funders and promised to provide assistance purchasing telescopes.

Currently the observatory is managed by the Government of Indonesia and became part of the ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology) and serves as a research institute and a formal astronomy education in Indonesia (on October 17 1951, after handed over its management by NISV).

Basically an observatory requires a very dark sky conditions in space as a minimum requirement so that astronomers can studied the sky object and made possible everything that happens in space.

The rapid development in property development around the area of observatory in Lembang is very disturbing the darkness of the night when the astronomers doing their research at the Observatory Bosscha at night.

Lembang itself is a city of tourist destination but the rapid development being a bully not appropriate, in addition to astronomical research has major benefits for society at large, on the other side of tourism activities and development of civilization should go hand in hand with the existence of such observation of the star.

An interesting story of an island, the isle of Sark within 80 miles to the south coast of England, the smallest island among the four members of the Channel Islands to the efforts of a U.S. organization whose mission is to preserve the beauty of darkness and the night sky, the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) together with 600 residents of the island in order to socialize the idea is always to reduce the use of light illumination, so as to create perfect darkness.

IDA give the title to the island as The Island with the Darkest Sky in the World!

Of course we will wonder why they gave the title to the isle of Sark. All occurs because the love of astronomy, so that astronomers can perform a variety of research with the conditions of free sky from light pollution, so that the stars in the sky will be seen clearly.

As said Steve Owens, an astronomer who worked with residents to realize the dark sky on the Sark Island, with a dark sky and the title of capital, the Sark Island economic potential to be developed. Travelers can be driven to live up to the winter so they can enjoy the beautiful night sky in the area of the island.

Astronomy on the rise and accounted for in the world, people curious about the planets, stars and life out there. Who knew something could be found from a study.

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(Source Kompas, The Guardian /Image CC)