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The Earth from space, looking at the night side and seeing yellow lights burning brightly where there are cities on North America.
Losing the Dark is a short planetarium show and video on light pollution, available as a free download in 23 languages.

Starry skies are a vanishing treasure because light pollution is washing away our view of the cosmos. It not only threatens astronomy but also disrupts wildlife and affects human health. The glows over cities and towns — seen so clearly from space — are testament to the billions of dollars spent in wasted energy by lighting up the sky.

The Losing the Dark planetarium show is the result of a collaboration between DarkSky and Loch Ness Productions. It introduces and illustrates some of the issues regarding light pollution and suggests three simple actions people can take to help mitigate it. The show gives planetarium professionals a tool to help educate the public about the problems of light pollution. Planetariums are uniquely positioned to teach audiences ways we can all work together to implement responsible use of lighting.

Losing the Dark has no license fee. The show has been rendered in many formats and languages, and you can download it below.

If downloading is not a viable option (for example, the movie files are too big for efficient downloading, or a theater requires frames to encode or slice its own movies), Loch Ness can ship the fulldome show on a USB drive. There is a minimal cost for this, outlined on the Loch Ness Prices/Ordering page. The show is also available directly from selected fulldome vendors whose systems use proprietary encoding.

In addition to the fulldome version for digital planetarium use, Losing the Dark can be downloaded for conventional flat-screen video in 23 languages for use in classrooms, kiosks, museum theaters, and advocate multimedia presentations. Classic planetarium theaters without fulldome capability can show this version using their traditional video projectors. The show is also available on YouTube and for online viewing, sharing, and embedding on blogs and webpages.

Loch Ness Productions and DarkSky are pleased and proud to make Losing the Dark available to planetarium theaters, educators, and viewers around the world!

If we all work together, we can bring back the dark of night to planet Earth.

Losing the Dark Poster

Show Credits

Losing the Dark is a joint production of DarkSky and Loch Ness Productions.

Writer/narrator: Carolyn Collins Petersen
Audio/video production: Mark C. Petersen
Music: Geodesium
Time-lapse photography and animation:
Dome3D
Loch Ness Productions
Additional imagery:
NASA
DigitalSky 2
Adler Planetarium
Gregory Panayotou
Gemini Observatory / AURA
Dan Nixon / Need-Less Campaign
Thomas O’Brien / tmophoto
Babak Tafreshi / TWAN
Special thanks:
Dr. Connie Walker (NOAO)
DarkSky Board of Directors Education Committee

Production of “Losing the Dark” was made possible by donations from:

Starmap-logo

Fred Maytag Family Foundation
IPS Logo