With most people living in city have more people never seen a full starry night sky
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.
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.
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.
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.
Don’t be silly, plenty of city folk have seen a picture of the full starry night 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.
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 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
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 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.
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’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.
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 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).
I was blown away by the night sky on my first night in Alaska.
