A number of factors make StarLight: A Common Heritage a remarkable vision, a supra-worldview. In April 2007, individuals and representatives from diverse academic and operational fields, from hard and social sciences, and from government and nongovernmental agencies and institutions gathered in La Palma, Spain, to spark the StarLight “territory”: majestically domed under the skyscape, as seen from the earthscape.StarLight is a farsighted terrestrial outreach: to unite the already impoverished earth with its relatively undisturbed heritage above, viewable dimly and superficially during the night.

As the proceedings argue, “the sky, our common and universal heritage” offers us the opportunity to use science and technology to understand and to act as guardians of the StarLight in its totality for the next generations, without attempting to tame or harness it for today’s wayward purposes. This calls for international actions to anchor the earth to its roof, in defense of quality and purity of earthscape, skydome, and what lies in between: our universe. (Jafar Jafari, President of the Starlight Scientific Committee)

Edited by: Cipriano Marín & Jafar Jafari

References - Action Plan / Referencias - Plan de Acción; Abstracts / Resúmenes

International Conference in Defence of theQuality of the Night Sky and theRigth to Observe the Stars.

Conferencia Internacionalen Defensa de la Calidad del Cielo Nocturnoy el Derecho a Observar las Estrellas.

Throughout the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the IAU Working Group worked with the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the advisory body to UNESCO concerned with cultural sites, to produce a Thematic Study on the Heritage Sites of Astronomy. This document, whose full title is Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the context of the World Heritage Convention: A Thematic Study, was published on 30 June 2010.

EditEd by Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte
Published by ICOMOS and the International Astronomical Union. 

With the support of Starlight Initiative and Instututo de Astrofísica de Canarias.