We are very grateful to the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (RASNZ) and its Kingdon-Tomlinson Endowment Fund for a generous $500 donation to the Kaikōura Dark Sky Trust in late 2025.
The funding has enabled the Trust to purchase some useful new equipment to support our community events and help people safely enjoy and explore Kaikōura’s incredible night skies.
The donation has funded:
- 10 rechargeable red lights, helping people move around safely at night while protecting their night vision and keeping light levels low.
- A pair of 15 × 70 astronomy binoculars and tripod connector, giving visitors another way to explore the night sky along our telescopes.
Trustee Larry Field has also put his skills to good use making a movable parallelogram mount to rest and angle the binoculars for best use. We selected these binoculars with a wide field and lower magnification to give the public an appreciation of star-filled Milky Way views, large open clusters and larger deep sky objects. This complements the higher magnification achieved with the 8 inch SCT telescope which we also use in our public star parties.
The new equipment had its first outing at our two-year anniversary celebration of Kaikōura’s International Dark Sky Sanctuary, where the binoculars and red lights were available for the community to use during an evening of stargazing at Fyffe House.
A huge thank you to RASNZ and the Kingdon-Tomlinson Endowment Fund for supporting the Kaikōura Dark Sky Trust. Funding like this helps us continue to share, celebrate and protect Kaikōura’s exceptional dark skies with our community and visitors.
