Introduction

I am Dani Robertson, the Dark Sky Officer for the Prosiect Nos Partnership between Snowdonia National Park, the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley, Anglesey and Pen Llŷn Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Job description

I protect the darkness! The Clwydian Range and Dee Valley is fortunate enough to have wonderful dark skies; this means it’s somewhere you can come to stargaze with little interruption from light pollution. It’s my job to make sure people know how important our dark skies are and that we are doing everything we can to protect them.

My day at work

My day tends to start a little bit later than everyone else’s if I’ve been out stargazing the night before! I will start my day with answering emails which can range to giving lighting advice to community councils and planning requests, to organising events and answering media questions with so much inbetween!

I quite regularly get asked to do presentations to clubs and societies so I do these a few times a week (although now on Zoom rather than in person). Then I might go to check the lights at a property and make sure they’re not negatively affecting any of our nocturnal species like bats and owls. Most evenings you’ll find me out and about running stargazing events from our brilliant mobile observatory. On the way home if the conditions are right, I’ll do some of my dark sky monitoring to make sure we are keeping light pollution at bay.

Is there a down side?

I don’t look forward to reports of seabirds stranding because of bright lights or finding examples of where bad lighting has trapped bats inside their roosts.

What I love

I love to teach people about the magic of our dark skies and how darkness is so important for our health, wellbeing and wildlife.