Interesting they use the Church of the Good Shepherd as the title photo for this. You'll find Mt. John observatory nearby, and the local region is already desig

Interesting they use the Church of the Good Shepherd as the title photo for this. You'll find Mt. John observatory nearby, and the local region is already designated a dark sky area. The interesting thing however, is the local township of Tekapo is booming in population due to... well, boomers. Tekapo is a nice place to settle down, plenty of retiries from Christchurch have built homes there and the size of the town has grown massively since the first time I visited it 20 something years ago. Unfortunately, I don't think the dark sky reserve will get in the way of further expansion. Mandated blackout curtains and low light street lamps can only go so far to combat the ever increasing light pollution in the basin. Unfortunately pt2 for Mt John observatory, it's survival has been in trouble before as the latitude is serviced by better telescopes in Chile. Therefore it's lacking investment drive for better instruments / expansion etc.