My wife and I were driving past the Fountain Park construction when we saw the new lights being installed on the park pathways.

We hoped the lights would be the low level path illuminating types similar to solar light brightness (maybe 500 lumens). As we passed again recently we noticed that the park does indeed look like the landing strip at Sky Harbor as indicated by Donna Brinkmeyer’s recent letter. All we need now is the control tower.

I have been in the process of installing an observatory at the high school. It should be completed this spring. One of the advantages of Fountain Hills is the low light pollution that invites sky watchers everywhere to come here rather than an hour north. There appears to be a strategy to slowly pollute the Fountain Hill sky with more high level lighting.

It is hard enough to do astronomy without all the additional lights. I know the observatory committee who hoped to install an observatory in the park must be also disappointed. How many people are walking around the park at 10 p.m. to midnight anyway? My wife suggested they do something safer like go to the gym.

If we must have lights in the park, can we lower the wattage so it is little above soft solar lighting similar to local homes?