Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 20, 1994                   TAG: 9404200116
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

DISNEY ASKED TO TURN DOWN THE LIGHTS

Worried that Disney's America will set the western Prince William County night sky aglow with lights from buildings, parking lots, cars and fireworks, Washington-area astronomers have met with Disney officials pleading for darkness in one of their viewing sanctuaries.

The area immediately around Haymarket is home to three observatories - one of them on Bull Run Mountain - that are used by amateur stargazers.

``This is going to be a continuing development throughout the area. We'll have more gas stations, fast-food restaurants and motels, more houses and streetlights, and this is the whole thing we went out there to avoid - the brightening of the night sky,'' complained Robert Bolster, a retired chemist and amateur astronomer from Fairfax County, who in 1970 built his own observatory in Prince William County. Now, he discovers it is three miles from the Disney site.

For the last decade, Bolster's Hopewell Observatory, perched atop Bull Run Mountain (altitude 1,200 feet), has been the site of night observation parties and tours for Boy Scouts, schoolchildren and members of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club and National Capital Astronomers' Inc.

By Bolster's count, there are about 14 observatories within 30 miles of the Disney site.

On Thursday, Bolster and leaders of the two astronomy clubs, which count about 350 members, met with Disney architects to ask for low-glare lights and for darkness after the park's closing time.

``We won't be satisfied until we see what happens, but at least they didn't throw us out the door,'' Bolster said Tuesday. ``The nice thing is everybody wins if you use well-designed lighting.''

Mary Anne Reynolds, spokeswoman for the 3,000-acre Disney's America project, said the company wants to be sensitive and address many of the astronomers' concerns.

``We fully intend to create a lighting plan that will not cause unreasonable light for our neighbors. ... The group presented valuable information to us that we are carefully studying,'' Reynolds said.

According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the night sky over the city is 15 to 20 times as bright as the sky over the Shenandoah Mountains in Virginia.

Around the nation's cities, light is scattering off of dust and pollutants, washing out telescopic images, he said. The problem is even beginning to trouble big observatories in remote areas of the West.

David Crawford, president of the International Dark-sky Association, based in Tucson, said solutions are cheap, easy and save electricity.

His group urges that builders eliminate globe lights and other unshielded sources that direct light up and away from the subject being illuminated, such as a sidewalk or parking lot.

``I think even in Washington people should also be able to see the universe,'' he said.