Local Skies Heavenly for Astronomers

By Graeme Zielinski
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 9, 2000; Page V01

Pete Johnson, head of one of the largest astronomy groups in the nation, remembers how he used to be able to go out onto his Fairfax County lawn as a kid and look deep into the skies.

"This was back in the days that you could actually see stars from in town," said Johnson, 48, of Centreville, a computer software designer and president of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club.

But that was many years--and stoplights, street lamps and billboards--ago, and now Johnson harbors little hope of spotting astral objects from his old neighborhood. That's why he, and several hundred other astronomy buffs, head to Fauquier and Loudoun counties, where the pitch-black skies are the envy of stargazers throughout the region, most of whom drive for miles to elude the glow of the city and its inner suburbs.

With new lighting ordinances on the books in Fauquier and under consideration in Loudoun, and with the inner suburbs tackling the touchy issue of light pollution, the astronomers are hoping that the edge of the Piedmont will be their last stand.

"We are being driven farther and farther into the country to find skies that are dark enough to use," Johnson said.

For the last decade, the club has met year-round at Crockett Park in Midland, near Route 28, and just last year began observations at Mickey Gordon Park on Route 50 in Middleburg. The group used to meet at Bull Run Park in Fairfax, but, Johnson said, development means that "it's just a wash of light."

The skies of Loudoun and Fauquier, however, still allow amateurs and professionals to see comets or peer through 10-foot telescopes at more common, but no less spectacular, objects such as Jupiter or Saturn. "It's great to see these things," Johnson said.

The group is negotiating its first formal lease with Fauquier for the use of Crockett Park, where the club has sponsored events that have drawn thousands, including the viewing in 1996 of Comet Hyakutake.

"We like having them there," said Larry Miller, director of Fauquier's Parks and Recreation Department. "They really appreciate the park."

And its darkness, which is important to astronomy because telescopes capture the light of distant stars. Light from terrestrial sources clutters up that collection process, an obvious fact to anyone who strains to spot the Big Dipper from a suburb flush with street lights.

Folks from the astronomy club, which has about 450 members, most of them from the inner suburbs, have become more vocal in their opposition to light pollution and made themselves part of the debate in January, when the Fauquier Board of Supervisors debated and passed a far-reaching lighting ordinance.

Supervisor Harry Atherton (I-Marshall) was the chief mover behind the new lighting restrictions. He said his effort was sparked by a few gas stations and shopping centers that have illuminated the night sky for miles around.

"If I look to the east from where I live [in Conde], there's a constant red glow. Fortunately, most of my view faces west," said Atherton, a vocal preservationist. "I think of all the things that people should have a right to, I think it should be having it get dark at night."

The resulting ordinance limits the light that commercial establishments and agricultural facilities can emit. It's one of only four such ordinances in Virginia, said Bob Gent, an astronomy club member and official with the International Dark-Sky Association, which lobbies for such laws. Loudoun is considering a similar ordinance.

"It's wonderful. Fauquier County's ordinance is a model of what we would like to see everywhere," said Gent, who testified at the January hearing. "Hopefully, we won't have to move out any farther now."