Grand Canyon National Park Dark Skies

Lighting for the parking lot at the Grand Canyons Visitor’s Center was designed to balance the visual needs of visitors to navigate the parking lot at night with the ecological need to limit impacts of outdoor lighting on wildlife. The parking lot also serves as the location for night-sky tours led by park rangers.

The lighting design uses very low light levels that are similar to the light under a full moon. Bollard scale lights have a completely shielded light source to minimize glare. The bollard lights use amber filtered LEDs with a very warm color to minimize impacts to wildlife, the night sky, and dark adapted vision for visitors during night-sky tours.

An addressable lighting control system allows the park rangers to dim or turn off selected lights using a smart phone or tablet to create a fully immersive, dark-adapted night-sky experience, then turn the lights on again when the tour is done.