Galloway Dark Sky Park

Image of the night sky at Gelston Lodge Cottages - taken by  Jim Bedford on holiday here.

Dumfries and Galloway has recently been awarded the status of "National Dark Sky Park" The Galloway forest park, hithertoo famous for its mountain biking routes the 7Stanes has been designated this dark skies status die to the exceptionally low levels of ambient light emitted by the sodium lights of cities. This enables many visitors to see the stars in a way they would not be able to form anywhere else in Britain.

Part of the selection process involved giving a rating via a sky quality meter, which measures the darkness of the sky overhead.

The higher the sky quality meter reading the better the conditions for viewing stars, with the darkest reading, such as would be recorded in a photographer's dark room, rated 24.

In major cities such as Glasgow or Edinburgh, a likely reading would be about 15 or 16 on the scale. Galloway Forest Park was rated 23 on the scale, giving it a gold tier Dark Sky Park award status - the highest achievable. Part of the selection process involved giving a rating via a sky quality meter, which measures the darkness of the sky overhead.

The higher the sky quality meter reading the better the conditions for viewing stars, with the darkest reading, such as would be recorded in a photographer's dark room, rated 24.

In major cities such as Glasgow or Edinburgh, a likely reading would be about 15 or 16 on the scale. Galloway Forest Park was rated 23 on the scale, giving it a gold tier Dark Sky Park award status - the highest achievable.