Climb onto the roof of an urban apartment or office block to watch the night sky, and you are unlikely to see anything because of the bright city lights glaring from below.

The growth of light pollution, coupled with the large number of radio waves in the atmosphere that hamper the use of radio telescopes, has driven an increasing number of professional and amateur stargazers to the roof of the world - the 4,500-meter-high Tibetan Plateau - where the clear, dark skies are a boon to astronomers.

Earlier this month, amateur Chinese astronomers promoted the country's first Dark-Sky Reserve, located in Ngari prefecture in the west of the Tibet autonomous region, at the 29th general assembly of the International Astronomical Union, held in Honolulu.