Todd Winters
Working with Your Community
There are many ways to get involved in night sky preservation, from improvements at your home, to working with your neighbors, to rallying your community and setting it on the right path as it grows. Learn more about how Hill Country Alliance and local communities are preserving our region’s night skies and how you can get involved below.
Friends of the Night Sky Groups
Hill Country Friends of the Night Sky groups are the local voices for night sky preservation in our region. They are the educators, the advocates, and the conveners that work with schools, chambers of commerce, local governments, and other community partners to advance night skies preservation at the local level and help to establish local ordinances, resolutions, and dark sky designations.
The Hill Country Alliance is here to support all of the Friends of the Night Sky groups and to help establish new groups where they do not yet exist. Please connect with the existing groups through the links below. If you want help starting a Friends group in your county, or you simply want to learn more, email us at info@hillcountryalliance.org. We would love to work with you!
Hill Country Alliance Recognition Programs
Join the ever-expanding group of landowners, businesses, and communities that have pledged to preserve the Hill Country night sky. Read on and become a Night Sky Steward, learn more about our Night Sky Friendly Business, or join our Neighborhood Recognition Programs.
Night Sky Friendly Neighborhood Recognition Program
This program recognizes subdivisions and neighborhoods that adopt the County Subdivision and Night Sky Friendly Neighborhood outdoor lighting policy into their homeowners agreements or deed restrictions. For more information or for assistance working with subdivision developers in your county to preserve Hill Country night skies, email info@hillcountryalliance.org.
Night Sky Friendly Business Recognition Program
The Night Sky Friendly Business Recognition Program is a cooperative program between some Hill Country Chambers of Commerce and the Hill Country Alliance to recognize businesses and organizations that have night sky-friendly outdoor lighting and to encourage others to follow suit.
Learn more about the Night Sky Business Recognition Program and how you can bring it to your County.
Photo: Rowdy Winters
Night Sky Stewards
Join the Hill Country Night Stewards, a group of landowners, businesses and communities who have pledged their commitment to protecting the night skies.
More Ways to Get Involved
Credit: Todd Winters
Hill Country Night Sky Month
The first annual Hill Country Night Sky Month, October 2020, is a celebration of our region’s night skies and of the hard work that Hill Country communities do to preserve it. Check out the Hill Country Night Sky Month page to learn more!
Credit: Amy Jackson
International Dark Sky Association
Join the Texas Chapter of the International Dark Sky Association and get support from the worldwide network of IDA Advocates. Help your community become an IDA Dark Sky Place through the International Dark-Sky Association Dark-Sky Places Program. This program works to encourage neighborhoods, communities, parks and protected areas around the world to preserve and protect night skies through responsible lighting policies and public education. If you need support in applying for one of these designations, contact the Hill Country Alliance at info@hillcountryalliance.org.
Credit: Amy Jackson
Neighborhood Advocacy
The IDA Texas ‘Be a Star’ award offers an easy way to evaluate your own property’s outdoor lighting and show your support for the cause. Download the ‘Be a Star’ award application here. If you want to engage your neighbors about their lighting, this sample neighbor letter, offers a good way to begin as well as the IDA Home Lighting Assessment.
Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center
Citizen Science
Participation in citizen science has become an increasingly popular and fun way to be involved in important scientific research and help night sky conservation efforts. Visit Globe at Night and Lost at Night to learn how you can contribute to light pollution research through citizen science.
Hill Country View Radio
Helpful Documents
Helpful Links
Recent Night Sky News
Blanco County students paint for the stars
The Blanco County Friends of the Night Sky (BCFNS) last week concluded its 2021 Night Sky Art Contest for students at the high schools and middle schools in both Blanco…
‘Lights Out’: Austin businesses to turn off lights overnight to save migrating birds
On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court voted to approve an effort to get Travis County residents and businesses to turn off some of their lights to help save birds’ lives.…
The importance of dark skies
Lost in the forest until nightfall, a young child faces his fears and learns how nature flourishes in darkness in the latest book from Shearer Publishing, based in Fredericksburg. The…
Inside the McDonald Observatory’s mission to preserve the darkest skies in West Texas
Bill Wren remembers the night sky rising like wallpaper above him when he was a child in rural Missouri. But after a move to Houston in 1970 when he was…