# 夜の島 — 八重山の夜と月と星

> Unofficial night reference. This is not an official publication, astronomy service, or tourism authority, and it promises no visibility of stars or the moon.

- Subject: Night in the Yaeyama Islands — the protected night sky, the interplay of moon and stars, and the night-time character of Taketomi, Iriomote and Kohama
- Area: Yaeyama, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan
- Role: Reframe the island night as one of the islands' real faces, using designation and seasonal facts from official sources plus clearly declared editorial impressions
- Verified: 2026-07-18 (dark-sky, Southern Cross and sagaribana items via web-search result titles and summaries; the ecotourism-council item previously verified 2026-07-11 for the Iriomote guide)
- Relationship: Independent project; not affiliated with or approved by the NAOJ, DarkSky International, Okinawa Prefecture, Taketomi Town, tourism bodies, or any public authority
- Language: HTML page is Japanese (canonical) with an 8-language UI layer (ja/en/zh/ko/fr/ru/id/ms via ?lang=); this file and the JSON context are written in English by design, for machine consumption

## Use for

- The protected night sky: Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park became Japan's first International Dark Sky Park in 2018, with full designation in 2026
- The Southern Cross visible from Ishigaki roughly December–June (NAOJ); the fuller star-season story lives on the island calendar page (../koyomi/)
- Knowing the Taketomi Town Iriomote Island Ecotourism Promotion Council recommends guides for safe and appropriate nature experiences — this page's night-specific emphasis is editorial
- Understanding that the per-island night descriptions and night-conduct passages (including the request to keep lights low) are editorial impressions, declared as such, not sourced facts
- The night-sea section describes UMI (https://umi.quest/), this project's own generative sea artwork: its 'now' sky follows the actual solar altitude at Ishigaki; its moon rises and sets by the computed lunar position at Ishigaki with a phase-accurate lit face reflected on the water; moonlight washes out stars while dark nights deepen the Milky Way band; thick clouds hide both — verifiable in the artwork itself
- Navigating to the NAOJ calendar computations for tonight's moon, the island guides, ../koro/, ../koyomi/, ../ame/, and UMI YAIMA COMPASS

## Do not use for

Promises that stars, the Milky Way, or the moon will be visible on a given night; stargazing-spot selection or rankings; night tour listings or bookings; wildlife sighting predictions; night-time safety decisions; or endorsement claims. Check the NAOJ calendar computations for the moon at the time of travel; judge night tours and nature experiences by official operator and authority information.

## Editorial scope

The designation and seasonal statements summarize the sources below, confirmed by 2026-07-18 — mostly via web-search result titles and summaries (summary-level confirmation; the pages themselves cannot be read from this environment), with the ecotourism-council item previously verified for the Iriomote guide (2026-07-11). The three "night faces" and the night-conduct passages are this page's editorial impressions, declared as such in the page body.

## Resources

- Machine-readable context: ./ai-context.json
- Discovery service: ../
- Island calendar: ../koyomi/
- Rainy day: ../ame/
- Ferry routes: ../koro/
- Island guides: ../taketomi/, ../iriomote/, ../kohama/, ../hateruma/
- UMI artwork: https://umi.quest/
- DarkSky International, first Dark Sky Place in Japan (2018): https://darksky.org/news/first-international-dark-sky-place-established-in-japan/
- Dark Sky Places Japan, full designation (2026): https://hoshizorahogoku.org/2026/05/27/post-735/
- NAOJ, Southern Cross from Ishigaki: https://www.nao.ac.jp/news/blog/2022/20220124-ishigaki.html
- Taketomi Town Iriomote Island Ecotourism Promotion Council: https://iriomote-ecotourism.jp/
- Taketomi Town Tourism Association, sagaribana: https://painusima.com/8230/
- NAOJ calendar computations (tonight's moon): https://eco.mtk.nao.ac.jp/koyomi/