Whois & Analysis for darksky.org

The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is a United States-based non-profit organization incorporated in 1988 by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer, and Tim Hunter, a physician/amateur astronomer.

The mission of the IDA is "to preserve and protect the night time environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting." Light pollution is the result of outdoor lighting that is not properly shielded, allowing light to be directed into the eyes and the night sky.

Light that shines into the eyes is called glare and light shining into the night sky above the horizon causes skyglow.

Lighting can also cause light trespass when it is directed into areas that it is not wanted, e.g., a neighbor's yard and windows.

IDA was the first organization in the dark-sky movement, and is currently the largest.

Light pollution, also known as photopollution, is excessive, misdirected or obtrusive artificial light.

As a major side-effect of urbanization, it is blamed for compromising health, disrupting ecosystems and spoiling aesthetic environments.

The term night sky refers to the sky as seen at night.

The term is usually associated with astronomy, with reference to views of celestial bodies such as stars, the Moon, and planets that become visible on a clear night after the Sun has set.

Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight, starlight, and airglow, depending on location and timing.

The aurora borealis and aurora australis light up the skies of the Arctic and Antarctic circles respectively.

Occasionally, a large coronal mass ejection from the Sun or simply high levels of solar wind extend the phenomenon toward the equator.

A nonprofit organization (also known as a non-business entity) is an organization whose purpose is something other than making a profit.

A nonprofit organization is often dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a particular point of view.

In economic terms, a nonprofit organization uses its surplus revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission, rather than distributing its surplus income to the organization's shareholders (or equivalents) as profit or dividends.

This is known as the non-distribution constraint.

The decision to adopt a nonprofit legal structure is one that will often have taxation implications, particularly where the nonprofit seeks income tax exemption, charitable status and so on.

Traffic lights, also known as traffic signals, traffic lamps, traffic semaphore, signal lights, stop lights, robots (in South Africa), and traffic control signals (in technical parlance), are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations to control flows of traffic.