Over three days, from the 23rd to the 25th of September, partners co-working in the EU-financed project “Interim North Sea - Darker Sky” met on the Danish island of Mandø in the Wadden Sea. The purpose of the meeting, with participants from France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, was to get a status update on the project 18 months before the grant runs out. SpaCe – Aarhus Space Centre hosted the meeting as one of the partners in the project. Apart from the formal presentations and discussions, the group was lucky to have clear skies to observe the starry sky on both evenings, as well as a daytime tour of the island and to go on an excursion to Esbjerg Harbour. Especially for one of the participants from Hamburg, the first evening under the stars became a very special and touching occasion, as she, at this meeting, got to see the Milky Way, which she, living in the city, had never seen before.

Local guides took the participants on the tours both day and night, and Professor Hans Kjeldsen and Ole J. Knudsen both had a welcome chance to brush off decades-old experience in guiding with a laser pointer under the starry sky.

The Darker Sky project is a follow-up to a similar project, KIT, where work is already in progress to try to obtain another EU grant to continue the work of protecting the darkness at night, to the benefit of nature lovers, astronomers, and people who generally enjoy the dark night.

Aarhus Space Centre is acting as a Danish node for the local groups in Denmark who have obtained the rare certificate of being a Dark Sky Park (Møn, Nyord, Bulbjerg, Mandø, and Anholt), and for those who are at present working to obtain international recognition. Aarhus Space Centre has taken this task on itself as part of its efforts to recruit students to the sciences and to raise awareness of the value of darkness, both for nature protection and for all of us who love the stars.