Whilst there is a growing interest in people's relationship with the natural world, much of the literature in this area tends to focus on daytime behaviour. There is far less research that attempts to understand the importance of people's relationship to natural environments at night and particularly towards the night sky. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to design, develop and validate a new measure - the Night Sky Connectedness Index (NSCI). The items of the NSCI were created and based on relevant theory, similar types of measures, and stakeholder consultation – for both the generation and selection of items. The psychometric properties were assessed using a sample of 406 people from the general population – with any level of interest in the night sky - and of these 115 completed a test-retest follow-up survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis and reliability testing resulted in a 12-item measure with two subscales: Connection to, and Protection of the night sky. The NSCI demonstrated good to excellent internal consistency for the overall scale and for each of its subscales and shows strong test-retest reliability. There was also strong evidence for the scale's convergent, discriminant and construct validity. In addition, the findings indicated that a greater connection to the night sky was significantly and positively related to a person's mental health and happiness. Our research also suggests that those people who live in more light-polluted areas are less connected to the night sky and feel less likely to protect it. The NSCI may be useful when, (i) investigating pro-environmental and conservation behaviour, (ii) assessing the efficacy of strategies or interventions aimed at reducing light pollution, (iii) helping to restore the human-night sky relationship, (iv) informing policy and responsible lighting use, and (v) rewilding our night skies to protect our natural environment and cultural heritage.

虽然人们对人们与自然世界的关系越来越感兴趣，但该领域的许多文献往往关注白天的行为。试图了解人们与夜间自然环境（尤其是与夜空）关系的重要性的研究要少得多。因此，本研究的目的是设计、开发和验证一种新的衡量标准——夜空连通指数（NSCI）。NSCI 的项目是根据相关理论、类似类型的措施和利益相关者协商创建的——项目的生成和选择。使用来自普通人群的 406 名参与者（对夜空有不同程度的兴趣）作为样本来评估心理测量特性，其中 115 人完成了重复测试后续调查。探索性因素分析和可靠性测试得出了包含两个子量表的 12 项测量结果：夜空的连接和夜空的保护。NSCI 的整体量表及其每个子量表都表现出良好到极好的内部一致性，并显示出很强的重测可靠性。还有强有力的证据证明该量表的收敛性、判别性和结构有效性。此外，研究结果表明，与夜空的更多联系与一个人的心理健康和幸福感呈显着正相关。我们的研究还表明，那些生活在光污染较严重地区的人们与夜空的联系较少，也不太愿意保护它。NSCI 在以下情况下可能有用：(i) 调查有利于环境和保护的行为，(ii) 评估旨在减少光污染的策略或干预措施的有效性，(iii) 帮助恢复人类与夜空的关系，(iv)告知政策和负责任的照明使用，以及 (v) 重建我们的夜空以保护我们的自然环境和文化遗产。