Ireland: The Sky At Night

For millennia, humans have looked to the night sky, to find comfort, illumination and inspiration in the stars. And every day, amateur astronomers the world over watch out for stars and constellations. 

One of the best places in the world for stargazing is the Kerry Dark-Sky Reserve in south-west Ireland. With its 700 square kilometres, it is the only “Gold Tier” dark-sky reserve in the entire Northern Hemisphere, and one of only three in the world. “Gold Tier” means the top standard: the most luminous stars, the least light pollution, and the highest level of protection for the natural darkness.  

So what can you see from here?

With the right conditions, no Moon and little cloud, the Dark-Sky Reserve permits us to see our own galaxy: the Milky Way, star clusters, and nebulas. But from here, you can also see the nearest galaxy to ours, the spiral Andromeda Galaxy, which has a trillion stars. 

Stargazing from the Dark-Sky Reserve can be done with little equipment. Amazingly, the Andromeda Galaxy is visible with the naked eye. Visitors who join one of the Kerry Dark-Sky tours can benefit from a telescope, for views of Jupiter’s four major moons, for example. Not only that, stargazing is an activity that can be done all year round.

Where is it?

The Kerry Dark Sky Reserve is located on the Iveragh Peninsula in south-western Ireland. It includes a core zone and a buffer zone around it, which helps protect the core. Surprisingly, much of the core zone is along the Ring of Kerry, maybe Ireland’s most iconic touristic driving route. 

Unlike the African deserts or other vast areas of dark skies, the Kerry Dark Sky Reserve is a “living reserve.” There are historic monuments, pubs and B&Bs – even a chocolate factory. 

Light pollution

Being a dark-sky reserve means more official protection from light pollution, which benefits residents too. Light pollution affects most of us in the developed world. We tend to live (at least in cities) under light-polluted skies and we never see the Milky Way. A story from Los Angeles used by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is enlightening: in 1994 an earthquake caused a power cut across the city. Residents called emergency support to report an unusual “giant, silvery cloud” in the dark sky. This cloud was in fact the Milky Way!

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interview: super stars

If you’re interested in seeing the sky at night, you should go to Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. It is home to the Northern Hemisphere’s only “gold tier dark-sky reserve” and the absence of light pollution means that the view is spectacular. Steve Lynott, director of the Kerry Dark-Sky Reserve, says he loves watching the reaction of visitors: 

Steve Lynott: When you go out, for the first 10, 15 minutes, your eyes need time to adjust, so we use red torches. Red light doesn’t affect your night vision and consequently, as your eyes become more attuned to the dark light, you start seeing what’s up there in terms of stars. And people say, “Oh, there’s more and more stars appearing!” It’s not that they’re appearing, it’s that your eyes are becoming more accustomed to the dark and consequently can see. 

what’s that? 

And some visitors get confused:

Steve Lynott: And one of the things that amazes an awful lot of people who stargaze as a hobby in cities, they actually get confused when they get here because they’re quite comfortable knowing the sky, they know this constellation and that constellation and they’re quite happy finding their way around, but suddenly they’re seeing a constellation with so many more stars in the background, that it’s confusing. It’s like I have six reference points, well, suddenly I have 16, and the six are in there amongst the 16, and it’s very interesting to see because it really brings home what we tend at times here to take for granted, which is the complete lack of light pollution in the core areas of the Dark-Sky Reserve.

The milky way

And the Dark-Sky Reserve offers contact with the stars, something that modern society has lost:

Steve Lynott: And because we have mountains all around it and the sea to the south and west, the lack of light pollution is quite noticeable. I can show you some photographs of Europe taken by NASA and you can actually see the level of light pollution. And when you read things like something like 98 per cent of people living in Britain cannot see the Milky Way, and will never have seen the Milky Way. And when we have no cloud, we just see this splurge of white across the sky behind the stars, and it’s spectacular.

The milky way

But back in the days when we could still see the stars, we didn’t really understand them:

Steve Lynott: Many, many people learnt the little children’s song “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” They say, “Well, why do stars twinkle? Well, they don’t! “And why are they so small?” Well, they aren’t! And, you know, one of the lines in that song is “How I wonder what you are.” Well, we know what they are, they’re actually huge, huge balls of mainly burning hydrogen which make our sun look tiny by comparison! 

hold on tight!

And most of us are still pretty ignorant when it comes to astronomy:

Steve Lynott: It’s just fascinating to explain to people that we’re turning, everybody should hold on really, because we’re travelling at 66,000 miles an hour, we’re spinning at 3,500 miles per hour, so therefore when you try and photograph the Moon from the Earth and you wonder why did it not turn out right, well, the reason is we’re on a moving surface, and it’s moving relative to us, so therefore, unless you’ve got the right equipment that caters for the two movements, you’re not going to get a great picture of – well, you will with the Moon, but certainly not stars. And of course photographers then use the relative movement to give these star trail photographs that you see. And it’s just great fun when people start realizing what’s going on. And for me, one of the joys of living here is that I get to see it on the days when it’s really great, and one of the things that we try and do is just educate people so they can go and have a look themselves and learn a little bit more about it.