Who is...
Milky Way Man, Dark Sky Guy, Dark Sky Knight?
Hello. My name is Jack Troeger, a.k.a. Milky Way Man, Dark Sky Guy, Dark Sky Knight!
I am a lifelong amateur astronomer and retired (1999) high school earth science (astronomy, geology, meteorology) teacher from Ames, Iowa, the home of 50,000+ future dark sky residents in central Iowa.
When I retired, my students could not see the Milky Way over Ames.
Several students said,
"Why don’t you do something about light pollution, Mr. Troeger?"
So I am doing something about it!I believe my efforts are the: SOLUTION TO LIGHT POLLUTION ™
I created my nonprofit Dark Sky Initiative to reclaim starlight over the country with my VISION of dark skies by the year 2020.
Now, the Milky Way is slowly reappearing on clear, dark, moonless nights over Ames. Some local people resist the coming DARK SKY REVOLUTION, but will eventually realize starlight is better than wasteful light!
You can do the same in your community.
I taught nearly 30 years in the Ames School District. I own several telescopes. Students congregated in my backyard to observe, and I taught them to use my scopes. Parents came, too. Everyone enjoyed using a telescope.
One night, whilst observing alone, an idea slapped me (WHACK!) in the face! "OUCH!" My school district could buy a bunch of telescopes. The students could learn to use them then take them home on clear nights to cruise the cosmos on their own.
Every student sees the wee world through a microscope at least once during his/her educational career. So why not a telescope or two or 10 or 20?
Every school has 10 or more microscopes, but schools never seem to have enough money, so I soon realized that the only way to attain my dream of SCOPES IN SCHOOLS was to find funding elsewhere.
To make a long, loo-o--o---g story short, 30 telescopes were donated (anonymously) to Ames High School in 1996-97, in memory of Carl Sagan, the people's astronomer! These are fine quality telescopes, not toys!
Now, ninth grade earth science students learn how to use the scopes and then take them home to DO astronomy, to observe the moon, planets, stars, nebulas, galaxies, star clusters, etc.
DOING astronomy is much more interesting than reading about it in a boring textbook or listening to lectures.
Parents and other residents get involved,too, because most of them never had a telescope to look through when they were in school. Did you?
There's never been a better time to make telescopes a part of your community's high school(s). There are more telescopes on the market than ever before, and many are portable, inexpensive and perfect for students (and parents) to use.
And best of all, when the students and parents in your community see all the wasteful light pollution spraying skyward in your community, they'll immediately want to do something to extinguish it!
Naturally, astronomers are vexed by all the wasteful light in the sky. But stolen starlight must be unacceptable to NONastronomers, too. Every person who has ever seen the night sky chock full of stars but now is lucky to see only a handful of stars overhead must press forward with all possible dispatch!
Don't wait for astronomers to cleanse the sky of wasteful light... Please, act now...
Help me SAVE THE MILKY WAY. Get some SCOPES IN your SCHOOLS.
- Read all the links on my website and contact me for help.
- Contribute to my efforts to SAVE THE MILKY WAY by adopting-a-star here.
THANK YOU.
Sunny Days and Milky Way Nights.
- Jack Troeger
- Dark Sky Institute
troegerj@raccoon.com