Star struck: a Chilean town turns its sky into a money-maker. (Executive Travel).

Malcolm Smith once worried, some say obsessed, about light bulbs. Not just any light bulbs, mind you, but the thousands of 70-watt bulbs lining the streets of this tiny Chilean town. He warned the few people willing to listen that the lights would eventually ruin the town's most valuable asset: utter darkness.

Smith's concerns were more than aesthetic. Vicuna boasts some of the planet's most dramatic night skies, an asset that has drawn US$1.2 billion in international telescope projects, millions of dollars in construction jobs and a blossoming tourism industry.

"Chile is at the center of the greatest construction program ever undertaken in ground-based astronomy," says Smith, director of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory home to one of the world's most-touted optical telescopes. "These all depend, for their success, on the skies over northern Chile being preserved in their current pristine condition."

Since 1963, with the construction of the Cerro Tololo observatory on a plateau at 2,200 meters, the mountains around Vicuna-population 8,000--have been recognized as one of the world's most promising locations for optical telescopes. The hilltops dotting the Atacama Desert combine dry air with cloudless nights to produce skies clearer than any found in the Northern Hemisphere. Even without a shot glass of the region's legendary pisco liquor, the night sky over Vicuna appears to swirl like a web of stars, pressing close to Earth.

The $1.2 billion in astronomy-linked projects includes more than a half dozen world-class telescope facilities. The European Union, the Carnegie Institute, the National Science Foundation and other institutions have all chosen northern Chile for their undertakings. And while the high tech equipment is manufactured abroad and imported to Chile, construction jobs alone have injected $150 million into the local economy in the last several years. The boom is expected to continue for at least the next decade, with plans in the works for the 2011 inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array radio telescope, or ALMA, which will link more than 60 huge antennas in a search for life in space.

In the early 1990s, as development and population growth headed toward the area, light pollution threatened the stargazing industry. But Mother Nature pushed the area toward a remedy in 1994, when a severe drought forced Vicuna to conserve electricity. City officials first switched from mercury to more energy efficient sodium lighting. Then, with funding from international observatories, the town hired lighting engineers from the Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso to design new outdoor light fixtures. The result? Total light output rose but the electrical bill was slashed in half. At the same time, light pollution fell by 95% because the new lights pointed downward as they illuminated the streets.

Today light pollution is so well controlled that scientists use the community as a case study of the coexistence of urban lighting and dark skies. "The savings in electricity alone paid for the whole project in three years," says Smith, acknowledging that the "economic arguments have so far been much more persuasive than cultural and scientific arguments."

Meanwhile, Chile's tourism department, Sernatur, has a $2 million budget to promote astronomy-based tourism and to reinforce the link between ancient cultures and the study of the stars. Future projects include a second observatory, a visitors center and a performing arts stage that, of course, will be b arely lit. Daniel Verschatse, who is building a hotel for astronomers, says visiting foreigners "are baffled by the number of stars and the visibility of the southern skies. The Milky Way is much denser here than in the Northern Hemisphere."

In gratitude for Vicuna's success in redesigning public lighting, the National Science Foundation donated a telescope to the community. Today, an estimated 10,000 visitors a year visit the Mamalluca Observatory where that telescope forms the centerpiece of Chile's amateur astronomy movement. Professional astronomers from nearby observatories instructed dozens of local residents how to operate the Mamalluca telescope, as well as how to teach basic astronomy classes. Now, even the bed-and-breakfast owners boast a working knowledge of constellations, shooting stars and the savvy to know the difference between peak evenings with meteor showers and slow nights when a full moon erases the visibility of star fields.

Local officials are star struck by the volume and variety of visitors flocking to what is marketed as "The Route of the Stars." The Vicuna area each year draws more professional astronomers conducting research at the world's biggest optical telescopes, amateur astronomers following meteor showers or backpackers who simply stretch out on their backs to watch the sky sparkle.

Along with revenue, Mamalluca Observatory is bringing knowledge to the town. Inside the observatory's office on the historic Plaza de Armas, a network of teachers, astronomers and tourists trade information and predictions. They exchange notes on the latest sighting, upcoming cloud conditions or the latest gossip about the Magellan Clouds, milky patches in the night sky that are actually galaxies visible to the naked eye.

Local schools, astronomy associations and tour operators now focus trips around the Mamalluca Observatory. While hardcore astronomers still insist on packing up satchels of equipment and trekking solo into the remote hills, for most tourists the Mamalluca experience is sufficient.