Nissan Navara Dark Sky BOLDLY goes where no telescope has gone before

Nissan Navara Dark Sky Concept is a star-gazing pick-up

The Nissan Navara Dark Sky Concept is a Navara built with the European Space Agency to transport a telescope to rugged, Dark Sky locations.

Even if all you’ve ever done to observe the universe above your head is look up on an evening walk, you’ll know the light pollution, especially in urban areas, is so great that you’ll never see a sky the likes of which are found in Hollywood star gazing movies.

That’s why those who look at the stars for a living – like the European Space Agency (ESA) – need to look at our night skies in areas which don’t have light pollution. Which, in our heavily populated and light-polluted world, isn’t the easiest thing to find, or to get to.

But Nissan has come up with an answer in the guise of the Navara Dark Sky, a specially modified Navara pick-up which can tow a specially developed trailer with refrigerated atmosphere containing a PlaneWave telescope, and take it to places you’d normally find rather difficult to access.

Nissan has tweaked the ProPilot system, around view monitor and blind spot warnings to work properly with its expensive trailer contents as well as a system – Intelligent Towing Hitch Alignment – to ensure hook-up is seamless and automatic.

The posh trailer carrying the PlaneWave telescope has a mechanised roof to open it up to the night sky, with battery back-up for both the car and trailer, and built-in WiFi.

But there are cosmetic tweaks too to justify further the ‘Dark Sky’ moniker, with a dark exterior colour with parametric patterned nebula motifs and an interior with reflective orange piping negating the need for disruptive night lights, and red lighting for both the trailer and Navara as its the least disruptive colour.

Dr Fred Jansen, ESA’s Mission Manager (good title) for the Gaia project to map the stars, said:

The Nissan Navara Dark Sky Concept allows observations to take place in very remote places, avoiding light pollution, while also transporting telescopes safely and easily.

Telescopes like the one in the trailer are needed in studies of planets and stars in our galaxy, allowing Earth-based follow-up campaigns enabled by the Gaia data.

The Nissan Navara Dark Sky is a one-off to demonstrate how versatile the Navara is, and once its finished its outing at the Hanover Motor Show – alongside the Nissan Navara N-Guard, it will be donated to continue being useful.