When the sun is out at Middle Fork River Forest Preserve in Champaign County, visitors will find themselves surrounded by 1,700 acres of scattered ponds for fishing, a labyrinth of trails for exploring and picnic tables among the groves.
But when dusk arrives and the moon rises, that’s when visitors are surrounded by stars, and it’s time to look up.
Middle Fork River Forest Preserve is Illinois’ first and only International Dark Sky Place. To achieve such a certification from DarkSky International, a site must have a visual-band zenith luminance of 21.2 magnitudes per square arcsecond. In simple terms, this means that the Milky Way must be visible almost every clear night.
Middle Fork River Forest Preserve outshines those requirements. Some of the deepest night sky objects can be seen on the preserve’s Dark Sky Trail, with a half-mile “Galaxy Loop” in the middle of an open field.
In recent years, the state has taken action aimed at addressing light pollution. Beginning in 2025, the state’s Responsible Outdoor Lighting Control Act began prohibiting outdoor lighting purchased with state funds from exceeding certain brightness thresholds. The General Assembly sent another bill to Gov. JB Pritzker this year on the subject as well.
“I took the dark skies for granted because I lived on a rural farm,” Matt Kuntz, lifelong Illinois resident and site superintendent of the preserve, said in an interview. “In 2018, I realized we needed to take up the effort to make this location (a dark sky park), and that’s when it all started.”
Kuntz, alongside his staff and astronomers throughout the state, undertook the effort to receive such a designation and were successful that year.
It’s what came next that surprised Kuntz.
The Dark Sky Place title has brought awareness beyond what Kuntz previously imagined. For instance, the preserve greeted hundreds of visitors during this year’s International Dark Sky Week in April. Kuntz and his team hold three to five educational stargazing events a year, which he said are almost always oversubscribed.
Kuntz also has been invited to astronomy conferences across the country. In one notable instance, he said he spoke at a national conference in Tucson that was so full, the organizers needed to get more chairs.
Kuntz said he is as surprised as he is humbled by the newfound attention.
“The guests and campers we have from all 50 states shows why we converse in dark skies. Folks come to central Illinois for dark skies,” Kuntz said.
For University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign exchange student Dominique Farfán, the preserve’s impact reaches internationally. When her brother, Martín Farfán, arrived from Italy, the first thing on the list was to go to Middle Fork River Forest Preserve’s International Dark Sky Park.
They weren’t disappointed. The sky was aglow with the Milky Way, stars and a waxing gibbous moon when they visited this spring.
“It feels, I don’t know, like surreal,” Dominique Farfán said. “I’ve never seen the sky so clear before.”
Senate Bill 3037 was passed in May to amend the state’s Energy Efficiency and Control Act that allows municipalities to adopt “stretch energy codes” that are more stringent than the Illinois Energy Conservation Code. It’s awaiting the governor’s signature.
The bill states that by December 2029, the Illinois Capital Development Board will create a stretch energy code regulating outdoor lighting for public and private entities in the municipalities where it is adopted. The code would create several listed lighting requirements in an effort to reduce light pollution.
“By addressing excessive and misdirected artificial light at night, the bill aims to improve public health, protect ecosystems, enhance nighttime visibility and reduce unnecessary energy use,” State Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, who introduced the bill, said in a statement.
Exploring the night sky can be done in many rural areas in the state. In early June, Jupiter and Venus appeared very close in the sky in the west just after sunset, in an astronomical event called a conjunction.
Being able to go to a site with clear sky visibility allows for something much greater for Dominique Farfán’s brother.
“When you go to the city, work, study, you don’t have the time to go outside. I think it’s one of the things I miss the most from when I was younger, to allow me to see the stars,” Martin Farfán said.
Julia Levy is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.