[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

I have been given permission from Administration to ask the following request from IIS members.

I had a meeting with our Mayor tonight regarding Light Pollution in our District (among other astronomy points) and she has asked me to put together a submission that she can take to council and have it acted upon. (she will be in the fight as she is an amatuer astronomer too)

What I am asking here is for anyone that has attended one of our Astronomy Camps in Snake Valley to email through a letter to go into the submission. Or even if you intend to come to an Astro Camp here one day.

Possible items to mention are that you attended the Snake Valley Astronomy Camps, how you were amazed at the dark sky here, how you enjoyed the dark sky, how it would be a pity to lose our dark sky, rare to find such dark sky near a big city like Ballarat and not far from Melbourne, how it would be great to have the town lighting reduced even more, prevention of more lights, how you will return to Astro events in Snake Valley as long as Light Pollution does not become a problem, what a great place in Victoria to build an Observatory, etc etc.

If you are from interstate, please mention where you come from.

I will leave it to you good folk to say what you want. I think you get the point.


AIM
Our aim is to get the towns streetlights replaced with the correct lights (full cut-off), for residents to reduce wasted outdoor lighting, to get shrouds placed on any upward light spillage, to educate locals on excessive lighting etc, and to reclaim the sky so we can continue to have a very dark sky, especially for our Astro Camps and the observatory we soon hope to build.

email to: ken.james1 at bigpond dot com

You can address the email to the 'Snake Valley Astronomical Association' or to me (Ken James)

Thank You