Starry night skies are among the most awe-inspiring sceneries connecting us to the natural wonders and cultural histories. However, increasing light pollution is diminishing our view of the night skies. More than 99% of the U.S. population lives under light-polluted skies, and nearly 80% of North Americans can no longer see the Milky Way.
The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) was established by the 1916 Organic Act with the mission to preserve and protect the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System. Our NPS Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division provides all 400+ national park units with scientific, technical, and management support in outdoor lighting, night sky quality assessment, and night sky interpretive programs.
To uphold this mission, I led a team to develop the NPS Fisheye Night Sky Imager: a lightweight camera system capable of rapidly assessing the brightness of the entire night sky in a single snapshot.
Python is our language of choice for processing all data. We have created this open-source pipeline that transforms raw images into positionally and brightness-calibrated fisheye views of the night sky. With the new cameras and the Python pipeline, we can now quickly measure sky brightness and deliver the best scientific information for the national park management.
We now have five camera systems distributed across the United States, and numerous park staff have been trained in using the Python pipeline. The users of this pipeline come from diverse backgrounds, including astronomy, biology, ecology, engineering, and geography.
This talk will showcase how Python plays a crucial role in conserving natural dark skies across the U.S. National Parks and will highlight the language as a friendly tool that empowers users from various backgrounds.