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It’s not just cities - there’s nearly no dark sky sites in all of Europe, and very few dark sky areas east of the Mississippi in the US.
I didn’t see the Milky Way with my naked eye until driving through NE New Mexico in my late 20s.
darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness
Thanks awesome map. This means I haven't seen a a full night sky :( My current light pollution dark yellow and I thought that was very bad. Too see a full night sky is going to top of my to-do list.
I grew up in a green-ish area of this map in Norway, and in Winger it gets pitch black. If theres even faint aurora in tje North we can see it behind the house.
For sure there is some light pollution - we don't draw the curtains in the evening - but it's pitch black by any standard observable by humans.
Can you see the stars well?
The entire sky is a carpet of stars. There's not an empty spot - there's always a smaller, fainter star to see. It's crazy.
According to that map, the place I was visiting to see aurora was a yellow region, but it was definitely dark enough to see the milkyway and the aurora itself by naked eye. If the rest of the map is similar, then there are still plenty of "dark enough" skies.
Would love for more though of course. Better light regulations are long overdue everywhere.
I’m from the northeast US. I studied abroad in Australia when I was 20 and we took a backpacking trip into the rainforest and hiked up a huge plateau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Solitary). Certainly not like “in the middle of nowhere,” but far away from Sydney or any other major light pollution that the night sky was beautiful.
I laid down on a cliff and saw the Milky Way for the first time. It was cold as fuck, but I had a light blanket and was just captivated. When our fire died down and everyone packed into their tents I still couldn’t help but hang out on that cliff for awhile.
I’m much older now, with less ability to get up and travel without consequence, but I want to travel across the US, and I think while some of the Midwest may be boring, I’m most excited to find some dark farmland that will let me see the Milky Way again.
https://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_map.html
You might find an area of dark sky closer to you than you think :)
This is really cool! Turns out I can drive like 4 hours instead of 20 to find a very low light pollution area, thanks!
I've spent quite a bit of time backpacking in Pennsylvania. One of my favorite places is a reservoir where they lower the water level drastically in the winter months. You can walk out to where it's normally underwater, lie on your back and have a 360 degree unobstructed view of the night sky. There are so many stars that you can't pick out constellations. I've seen what i assume were satellites, a continous red glare moving incredibly fast and silent. Unfortunately development is encroaching. First a new highway then a casino.
Have you been to Cherry Springs? The stargazing there is really amazing.
I've never been there but have spent lots of time in the PA Wilds, the region which encompasses it and a whole lot more. The reservoir I described is the Allegheny Reservoir to the west of Cherry Springs
Thanks, I'll have to check that out next time I'm in the PA Wilds!
When I was a kid (30+ years ago), I used to lie in the grass in my yard at night and stare at the stars. I grew up in the forested countryside, so there wasn't much light pollution and I could clearly make out constellations.
I joined the US military and left home for 20 years. When I retired, I moved back into my childhood home to help my aging father.
One of the first things I noticed is that almost all the stars are gone. Light pollution from the nearby cities has gotten so bad, my night sky is just a haze now. I can't see stars clearly anymore.
I've read that light pollution has gotten so bad globally that there isn't anywhere left on Earth - not even Antarctica - that doesn't experience light pollution to some degree. I wish I could go up on a shuttle and see the stars from outside our atmosphere. That must be such an amazing view, completely unfiltered. Like living underwater your whole life and then finally seeing clearly when you lift your head out of the water for the first time.
I grew up rural, and moved into a small town.
I went back out to the mountains to visit family after bring away for a few years and I was blown away. For as small as my town is, it still can't compare to a middle of nowhere sky.
I remember seeing the actual milky way when I looked up back in the 80's and 90's. Now we're lucky to see the brightest stars and planets at all. My son has never seen it. This is rural W-EUR btw.
Don't be silly, plenty of city folk have seen a picture of the full starry night sky.
I live way up north in the boonies. My first neighbor is 5 miles from my place. Our sky is perfectly clear with zero light pollution. We get all the stars and the northern lights too.
This made me very sad. I'm very privileged, I live in a dark sky community very near a big telescope and on the border of a huge desert. My dad's really into astronomy, looking at the night sky has been a big part of my life. I lived for a bit in the city, and the sky was one of the things I missed the most.
It's like the ocean, I suppose. Another thing that it seems impossible to me that people could go their whole lives and never see, but maybe most do.
I had nice views when sailing with the navy, in the middle of the Indian ocean. The entire milky way visible with the naked eye. It got even better using night vision goggles.
People living in cities sometimes leave and many have not lived in a city their whole lives. Additionally, the power can go out at night in cities. For instance, where I live we sometimes get tropical storms, winter storms, and other disasters that can knock out power for hours (and even days) even inside the city -- I imagine that's not uncommon elsewhere. A lot of cities in poorer nations ration power or only have electricity available during certain hours.
So, overall, I would say that it's probably not the case that "most" people have never seen a full starry night unless you're getting super technical and pedantic about the word "full" to where you're specifically asking about a completely unobstructed view with 0% light pollution, in which case then I would say that almost nobody has seen a full starry night in that case, regardless of whether or not they live in a city.
I have been on this planet for a while and I have only seen the night sky like the last picture driving through Texas in the middle of nowhere.
Power going out in a city isn't enough to stop the light population from surrounding areas. It would have to be the only city around for miles and it would have to be a full power loss.
I would say most people have never came close to seeing an uncountable amount of stars in the sky.
I live in a medium sized city that is 30 minutes from a large city. I can count like a dozen stars in the sky. If we lose power the sky doesn't magically change to look like it was in Texas. Honestly, I don't remember it changing at all.
Thanks for the image. The best I have seen is 4-3 back in 2000s now I be lucky to see a 7.
Highly recommend going to see it in person. Pictures can't do it justice.
It's like the grand canyon. You can look at pictures but being there to actually see the scale is a different experience.
It's honestly mind blowing
It took Hurricane Ivan knocking out the whole region before we could see #1.
Was lucky enough as a kid to get to visit one of those giant, astronomical telescopes one evening. The astronomer got it pointed at what he called a "star cluster" and invited me to take a look. I expected, like, a handful of stars. Ten? Twenty? I saw more stars in that cluster than I've ever seen in my life, and it blew my little mind. It was stunning.
I think its less about people living in the city and more general light pollution. Light pollution spreads a lot further than you think even for places you think are a full starry night sky. I know in my own life, the difference from my urban house, to a more rural cabin is huge, but the jump from that rural cabin to the middle of Boundary Waters Canoe Area is also huge. I assume if I ever get a chance to go to an International Dark Sky Place there will be another large jump.
Exactly. I was out in the woods plenty as a kid, camping and whatnot. Wasn't until my mid-30s when I truly saw the Milky Way. That was in deepest Mississippi.
No. Because light pollution makes it impracticable, even if you live rather far from civilization. The best place on Earth to see it would be Point Nemo, and even then it wouldn't be as clear as it was before human civilization (not even just electricity, either.)
It was enough for me to move to a dark sky site. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy cities and city people. But this was affordable and breathtaking, and I'm a natural hermit anyway.
I haven't seen real stars since I went to the boundary waters in 2012. It's a surreal experience, and one of the things that led to my radicalization.
I work in a very rural area, sometimes you have to slow clients down and tell them to appreciate the natural beauty around them(clouds, mountains, trees, rainbows/sundogs, etc.). I'm going to blame this on phones more than urbanization though
I vaguely remember when I was like 6 or 7, I was at my maternal grandparent's ancestral house and it was summer and I was just lying outside on the ground staring at the night sky, and I think the adults were just talking about stuff I don't remember. I mean its been almost 2 decades, the memory is very fuzzy. I remember ther was lizards on the house, and there was like a very swampy farmland area thing (idk how to describe it lol). It wasn't like the done with machinary, at least not at the time, it was done manually. (Luckily I never had to do that, my Hukou was rural so it would've been quite shitty), I heard from my mother there was some blood-sucking worm hiding on the farm. This was in Mainland China around 2000-2010s, so there wasn't much electricity in the village, and very few light-pollution. I don't remember there being internet, my concept of the world was so small, now I'm all the way in the United States. I heard that most people die very close to where they were born, and don't even have a passport. And I've have passports from 2 different countries! (well not simultaneously, but you get the idea)
I don't think I ever recognized any contallations, I was way too young at the time. Or maybe I did and forgot... 🤷♂️
Now I kinda wanna just go someplace rural to see the night sky, bit unfortunately, not being white and going to a rural area in America feels... um... 👀 verrry sketchy, to say the least (cuz racism lol).
The starry sky is part of why I’m excited for my frat’s annual canoe trip in the backwaters of Minnesota, just outside Nimrod (population 69). The dark skies map linked in other comments shows it as a dark blue, and when there are no clouds it is truly a magical sight.
Seeing so many stars at once makes me understand why astronomy and constellations were so interesting to ancient peoples. It also makes me a little sad to know that such wonder is hidden behind the glow of the cities I’ve lived in.
I've been on a few cruises in my life, and my favorite part is always going out to the darkest party of the deck in the middle of the night when the ships out in open waters, to just lie there and look at the stars.
I was blown away by the night sky on my first night in Alaska.
i saw it wile i was underway, on watch where the edges of the earth falls away leaving me sailing through the stars