JOYA-LA BARRETA ECOLOGICAL PARK, Mexico (AP) -- As night descended, a rumble of frogs filled the air in this park outside the central Mexican city of Queretaro. In the sky, tiny stars appeared one by one, aligning into constellations.Juan Carlos Hernández used his weight to adjust a large telescope. "Aim for me, Rich!" he yelled to his friend. Ricardo Soriano focused a green laser on a small patch of clouds, targeting where the Tsuchinshan-Atlas comet will soon be visible.Hernández and other amateur astronomers worked to certify Joya-La Barreta Ecological Park last year as the first urban night sky space in Latin America by DarkSky International, an organization working to educate the public about the harm of indiscriminate lighting.The park sitting at about 8,520 feet (2,600 meters) above sea level on the outskirts of Queretaro gives unobstructed access to the night sky. While over 200 dark sky places exist globally, Joya-La Barreta park is only one of 11 in areas that are considered urban. Its dark sky status is under constant threat, however, from increasing light pollution and urbanization.Fading starsHernández, who just turned 40, has advocated relentlessly for the night sky for more than 20 years.The president of Queretaro's Astronomical Society and one of the founders of the stargazing tourism agency Astronite, the aerospace engineer by day has been chasing dark areas to observe the stars since he can remember."In 2014 you could see Omega (Centauri) sitting in the sky just above the city," he said of a constellation over 17,000 light years away. "Today it's unimaginable."A 2023 study that analyzed data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers found that artificial lighting is making the night sky across the world about 10% brighter each year ...