Parks After Dark

Protecting the night sky with the National Park Service

Words and photos by the National Park Service

If you’re searching for a prime place to view a stunning night sky, a national park is a great option any time of year. Half the park is after dark, which is why the National Park Service has its own Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division to help protect and improve our shared night sky resources. Why should we try to protect night skies? Thanks for asking. *Dims theater lights for optimal movie and star viewing.*

Areas free of light pollution give us a window into the cosmos. They provide opportunities to observe our own Milky Way galaxy and even objects outside of our galaxy, trillions of miles away. Darkness and night are also crucial to the survival of all plants and animal species. Ecosystems rely on natural cycles of light and dark, and night skies are integral to many cultural and historical traditions and practices. As opportunities to experience stellar night skies and natural light cycles become more and more rare, the work to protect the darkest skies we still have becomes even more essential.

While many parks offer high-quality opportunities for stargazing, some have earned a special Dark Sky Park certification from an organization called DarkSky International. This certification is given to parks that offer outstanding ranger-led interpretive programs and night sky events, and install lighting designed to minimize light pollution. Forty-six national parks across the United States have proudly received this certification, from Big Bend National Park to Grand Canyon National Park. 

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Grand Canyon | Arizona

About the park

Grand Canyon National Park highlights a geologic wonder of the world in a high desert landscape. The area is the ancestral homeland of 11 present-day tribal communities, and the park works closely with tribal partners to showcase the vibrant culture still present to this day. Beyond these experiences to be had in the daytime, the park stuns visitors with the brilliant night sky the park service works so hard to protect.

What you can expect to see

Visitors can expect to see astrological constellations, the Milky Way galaxy stretching across the starry night, and even our closest celestial neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy.

How this benefits the environment and wildlife

Being a Dark Sky Park provides great benefits to the park ecosystem and visitors alike. Park wildlife uses the dark of night to avoid predators, hunt for food, or generally live nocturnally. Park visitors can also experience the health benefits of natural darkness if they camp overnight. An uninterrupted circadian rhythm is sure to provide visitors with a wonderful night's rest after exploring the beauty that is the Grand Canyon.

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Voyageurs | Minnesota

About the park

Voyageurs National Park covers over 218,000 acres of lakes, forests, and streams in northern Minnesota. Established in 1975, it is named after French-Canadian voyageurs who once navigated its waters. Rangers and the park’s education specialists offer telescope programs to provide closer viewings of the moon, the sun, planets, and other celestial objects.

What you can expect to see

Depending on the time of year, other distinctive and popular constellations — technically asterisms — are also visible, such as Orion, Ursa Major (which includes the Big Dipper), Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, Cygnus, and the Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown).

Don’t forget to search for the North Star, or Polaris, which is significant to Voyageurs because it represents Minnesota’s official motto, L'Étoile du Nord, which means “Star of the North” in French.

The most popular night sky event that everyone is hoping to see is the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Depending on their intensity, the lights might be just a hazy patch or band on the northern horizon; at higher intensities, the northern lights can fill the entire sky. The lights will usually be white or pale green, but will sometimes appear in colors such as yellow, red, blue, or even purple. The chances of seeing the northern lights can be difficult to predict and are impacted by the type of radiation produced by the sun and whether the night sky is clear and dark. In the winter odds are slightly better because there are more hours of darkness.

How this benefits the environment and wildlife

The lack of light pollution has a big (and positive) impact on animal behavior. It not only allows predators to hunt and prey to hide but also helps sustain reproduction and sleep. For our subaquatic friends, too much artificial light can impact not only individual species but the entire ecosystem as a whole. Trees also benefit from dark skies, as artificial light can impact the process of photosynthesis. The more natural the light cycle, the healthier the trees, and the more oxygen, animal habitat, and food they help provide. 

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Big Bend | Texas

About the park

Big Bend National Park is a geological marvel, where visitors can observe  sea fossils and dinosaur bones, and volcanic dikes that cut across the desert landscape. It's a world of diverse species, from the meandering river corridor that sidles across the desert floor to the sky island ridge tops that reach for the stars. It's a place where you can still hear the whispers of pioneers, ranchers, miners, and Native Americans. And it's a land of borders — a place where countries and cultures meet.

What you can expect to see

Big Bend has some of the darkest natural night skies in the country due to the park’s remote location and the commitment of park staff and visitors to preserving this amazing resource.

How this benefits the environment and wildlife

Efforts to preserve the dark skies of Big Bend were rewarded when DarkSky International certified it as a Gold Tier International Dark Sky Park in 2012. Ten years later, Big Bend became part of the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve, which spans Texas and Mexico. At over 9 million acres, the reserve is the world’s largest bi-national protected Dark Sky Place.

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Great Basin | Nevada

About the park

Great Basin National Park is in a remote part of Nevada and contains a high concentration of unique caves, some of the darkest night skies in the contiguous US, a multitude of wildlife species, some of the oldest living organisms on the planet, and immense opportunities for isolation. The park’s dark skies are an enormous draw for many visitors, who sometimes travel thousands of miles to marvel at the stars.

What you can expect to see

The sights in Great Basin's night sky are quite literally limitless. On a clear, moonless night 4,000 or more stars are visible to the naked eye, along with the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies and our neighboring planets. Out here, visitors can join a tradition as old as humanity: gazing into the night sky and telling stories, finding constellations, and wondering what lessons we may learn by looking beyond.

How this benefits the environment and wildlife

Dark skies help us maintain our sleep patterns, reduce stress, and lower energy usage. They also provide us with millennia-old storytelling resources. The benefits of dark skies extend beyond humans to the environment around us. Light pollution can disturb ecosystems by decreasing reproduction, disrupting migration patterns, increasing predation, harming pollinators, and reducing foraging time for nocturnal creatures. By maintaining a darker, more natural night sky, places like Great Basin provide refuge from an ever-brightening world.