[SolarWind]

Originally Posted by sentinel

This is more of a Chicagoland/suburban thing, but nonetheless very cool for the entire region. I'm very familiar with this place and how lovely it is, glad to see it's getting some neat recognition (also considering my go-to brewery borders it):

Palos Preserves Named Largest ‘Urban Night Sky Place’ In The World

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/08...ght-sky-place/

https://www.darksky.org/our-work/con...preserves-u-s/

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

But... they close at sunset? Hopefully the fix that?

With permission, I'm sharing an email that Mike McNerney sent to the Northwest Suburban Astronomers (NSA Club):

I received a response from the FPCC administrator handling the Urban Dark Skies Place designation for the Palos preserves. I expressed the desire to have after hours access for night sky viewing and imaging. I explained that I’m a member of NSA and IDA and that I, along with all of our members, understand the protocols of protecting nature in the process of our endeavors. I also told him that many members of our group live in Cook County, so he wouldn’t feel I was a lone wolf. Here’s his response:

Thank you so much Michael for writing this. I really, really, appreciate your feedback, concerns and eagerness to enjoy our preserves. I am scheduling a meeting with my team later this week to discuss this more. I, or someone else on my team, will get back with you once we have our internal meeting, to keep you in the loop on where we are, and hopefully provide some alternatives to you. Will keep you posted.

Anthony Daniel Tindall
Policy & Sustainability Manager
Office of the General Superintendent
Forest Preserves of Cook County
69 W. Washington, Suite 2040 • Chicago, IL 60602-3155

Prior to the email exchange with Anthony Tindall, Mike spoke with a Ranger:

The Ranger’s take was that, for the foreseeable future, they expect after hours access to be limited to planned “hosted” events for the public (of which there are none yet), and access to camping at Bullfrog Lake (which Cook County residents can do now). He didn’t have an answer about the question of space to allow for telescopes to be set up. Bullfrog has a small parking lot for tent campers at the end of a sizeable parking lot. The big lot has a decent horizon and is on top (or near to the top) of a hill. That’s where we had basecamp on Utopia. Groups could always get a permit for a special event under the regular permitting process, but it’s pricy. It’s geared toward TV shows and films shooting overnight.

Mike mentioned Amazon's 'Utopia' series had their basecamp in Palos Preserves. Here's Mike McNerney's IMDb page if you're interested.

Finally, here's a link to a light pollution map of Palos Preserves. You can zoom out and see light pollution for the rest of the world. It also has overlays for prior years showing how light pollution is increasing over time.