Dark Sky Observatory finds new Galloway home after blaze

The Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Prof Catherine Heymans, is set to become the SDSO’s patron.

She said: “In Scotland we’re incredibly proud of our internationally-recognised dark sky sites, far from the streetlights that prevent urban-dwellers from seeing the true beauty of the cosmos.

“When the clouds clear at Clatteringshaws Loch, deep within the Galloway Forest, the sky is literally teeming with stars.

“It’s the perfect location for the new SDSO, which, like a phoenix, is rising from the ashes of its much-loved predecessor, renewed as a bigger and better version of what came before.”

SOSE’s interim place and enterprise director Anthony Daye said it was happy to have backed the purchase of the site.

He said developing the observatory would be an example of how the area’s natural resources could be used to benefit the region.