LETTER: Data center threatens to end observatory’s night sky views

To Ozaukee Press:

We are writing to express concerns about the data center that will be built in what is now the Town of Port Washington.

The Northern Cross Science Foundation (NCSF) is a nonprofit organization that operates an astronomical observatory at Harrington Beach State Park. For 50 years we have focused on educating the citizens of southeastern Wisconsin about astronomy and the night sky. We hold telescope public viewing nights at our observatory in the park. Our observing area has become very popular place to view astronomical events such as the recent auroras, lunar eclipses and solar eclipses.

The observatory was funded and built by the NCSF in 2006. Since that time, the night sky has become more and more polluted with excess light from Port Washington and Sheboygan.

Light pollution happens when light from lighting fixtures escapes into the sky. Examples of bad lighting include lights that radiate directly into the sky (unshielded), lights that reflect off bright surfaces such as large parking lots and, more recently, LED lighting that cannot be filtered out in our telescopes.

We have significant concerns that the exterior lighting from the data center project, located only a couple of miles from our observatory, will make our observatory useless for its primary purpose, public astronomy and night sky education.

Moving our observatory would be an expensive and inconvenient process for a volunteer organization like ours. We strongly object to any increase in light pollution from projects like this.

What measures have been taken in the planning of this project to minimize the light pollution impact to the surrounding communities and natural environments?

Light pollution not only affects how much of the night sky that we can see, but it also is bad for wildlife and migrating birds. The Lake Michigan shoreline is an important migratory route. Lights that are not aimed at the ground waste money and are not efficient. We would be happy to work with the developers to install night sky friendly lighting.

Jeff Setzer, Joyce Jentges, Gene DuPree, Don Woelz, Kevin Bert,

James Neal and Mark Zellner

The board of directors of the Northern Cross Science Foundation