Fred Watson is a professor of astronomy, a popular author, musician, and beloved TV and radio personality and has an asteroid named after him (5691 Fredwatson). He is also Australia’s first Astronomer-at-large which is not only a pretty impressive work title but more so a testament to all of his accomplishments over the years in the field of astronomy. It also means Fred knows better than most of us what’s at stake when talking about the issue of light pollution. In some urban areas our night sky environment has shrunk to just a “hand full of stars” due to the amount of bad light that is radiating into the atmosphere. But light pollution also has negative effects on wild life and our own health.

On this episode Fred is talking about his involvement with dark sky tourism and the efforts for urban dark sky parks to show people the beauty of an untouched night sky environment. He also shares what can be done to stop light pollution.

Here you can find out more about Fred:
http://www.fredwatson.com.au

This is a link to the Australian Dark Sky Alliance:
https://www.australasiandarkskyalliance.org


This Episode of Talking Australia is hosted by Angela Heathcote (Digital Producer at Australian Geographic) and produced by Ben Kanthak (www.beachshackpodcasts.com).

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