This town could be Tasmania's first Dark Sky Place. It wants others to join (2025)

Community members have been working on an application for place certification through DarkSky International, a nonprofit that aims "to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting".

If successful in its bid, the locality will join more than 200 Dark Sky Places across 22 countries that are recognised for their stargazing potential.

Just five of these sites can be found in Australia, all of which are on the mainland. They include The Jump-Up in Winton, Queensland, Warrumbungle Dark Sky Park in NSW, and Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in South Australia.

While this presents an opportunity for Ross to become the only certified location in Tasmania, District Committee chair Nigel Davies wants to see the movement adopted by the rest of the state.

He pointed to towns such as Sheffield and the West Coast localities of Rosebery, Queenstown, and Strahan, along with "all the little towns down the East Coast" as strong candidates.

"Places like Geeveston in the far south on the channel would probably be good. Bothwell, I'd imagine, would be fantastic because it's up at a higher altitude, remote from any large population," he told The Examiner.

"There's no reason why they couldn't get on board with the concept and promote the Dark Sky idea, even if they weren't accredited formally by Dark Sky International."

Ross itself has returned strong readings on a Sky Quality Meter (SQM), which is used to measure light levels. Early results show the town is more than dark enough to qualify for Dark Sky status.

The village has also received a letter of support from the Northern Midlands Council, but there's still a long way to go before it can receive full accreditation.

"We have to do an inventory of lighting in Ross. That's [noting] the location and the luminosity of all the street lamps and any public lighting like the cenotaph, the bridge, the church, and so on," Mr Davies said.

"We will ultimately have to get all the street lamps in Ross replaced with lamps of the correct temperature, the correct luminosity, with the light being cast downwards, and not outwards."

Although the town will also have to demonstrate "broad community support" through letters from various Ross businesses, Mr Davies said he didn't think this would be a problem.

"I've been told it can take up to two years to complete this process. I would hope to do it in less time than that, maybe 12 months," he said.

In the interim, the District Committee chair is looking to promote 'astrotourism' as a concept to get Tasmanian towns and legislative authorities on board.

He said the island state was well-suited to this initiative due to its limited light pollution, allowing for fainter details to be observed.

"You can't see these things in Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane because of what's called the light dome, which actually extends, you can see it 100 kilometres away. You lose all the fine detail of the night sky, things like the Milky Way," he said.

"There's no visible light domes from Ross. You can't see lights from Launceston or Campbell Town or Oatlands, so you have a truly dark sky."