Shutterbugs strive to promote dark night tourism

Zhou Bo, another member of the country's first group of astronomy photographers, has been friends with Wang for many years.

Together with two other photographers, they founded the China StarVision Alliance, a platform for nearly 1,000 Chinese astronomy photographers and businesses related to dark sky tourism.

"In the beginning, it was just a chatroom for enthusiasts to share their hobby," Zhou said.

These days, the 40-year-old Beijinger works with the CSVA service team and considers it to be a key institution in the promotion of dark sky tourism and a strong contributor to the country's rural vitalization efforts.

In April, the Volunteers Organization for Innovative Country Service, an institution under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, launched "Stars at Hometowns", a program promoting the development of dark sky tourism in the countryside and the need to reduce light pollution. One of the CSVA's founders was appointed as the program manager.

"The vast rural areas of the country are perfect places for the development of dark sky tourism," Zhou said.

"It needs no big financial investment and can bring in sizable profits, because stargazing enthusiasts will remain in a place for a couple of days and buy things there if the place offers decent accommodations and a dark sky with little light pollution."

As a result, the CSVA has cooperated with local governments in more than 20 areas to promote dark sky tourism, including Hami prefecture in Xinjiang.

As a seasoned livestreamer of content related to astronomy, Zhou has a really tight schedule.

After hosting two livestreams of the Perseids meteor shower, he left Hami on the morning of Aug 13.

He arrived in Xining, Qinghai province, the next day after a 16-hour drive and two hours of sleep.

After a daylong meeting in Yushu prefecture, Qinghai, he visited several counties in the next three days to take photos of stars.

Zhou then traveled to Dunhuang, Gansu province, on Aug 18 to attend a tourism festival and returned to Yushu on Aug 21.

On Tuesday, he traveled to a remote valley in Yushu and livestreamed during the annual Qixi Festival, or Chinese Valentine's Day.

In Chinese mythology, the Qixi Festival — the seventh day of the seventh lunar month — celebrates the annual meeting of Niulang, a cow herder, and Zhinu, a weaver.

"I showed my viewers where the Niulang and Zhinu stars are in the galaxy," Zhou said.