The Bieszczady Star Sky Park

The Bieszczady Star Sky Park was established in 2013 and its territory includes the area of the Bieszczady National Park, the Landscape Park of the San Valley and the Ciśniańsko-WetlińskaLandscape Park, which gives a total area of 113 846.41 hectares. It is the second park of dark skies in Poland after Izerian Dark Sky Park and the second biggest park in Europe. Together with the neighbouring Park of the Połonina Dark Sky in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Dark Sky Park in Ukraine, they form the world's first triple park of dark sky called the Tripark of the Dark Sky of the Eastern Carpathians (an area of more than 208 thousand hectares). The aim of creating this kind of parks is to protect dark sky against artificial light pollution. The task of the Park is to protect the darkest corners of our planet, where the night environment is not affected by artificial light, popularize knowledge regarding light pollution and observe the starry sky, promote ways of protection against light pollution and the ways of good illumination. The Bieszczady are a unique place to observe the sky. Even the stars with a brightness of 7.4 magnitudes can be seen without a telescope here. That means that every cloudless night, when the Moon does not shine in the sky, one can see more than 7,000 stars. For comparison, in rural areas, where are only a few street lamps, one can see only 2500 stars. At the viewpoint above Lutowiska, appropriate Park information boards were installed.