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One of the bad things of our modern lifestyle/civilization, most of the population hasn’t got access to a dark sky. I think of myself as privileged since I have
by NKosmatos 4y ago
One of the bad things of our modern lifestyle/civilization, most of the population hasn’t got access to a dark sky. I think of myself as privileged since I have the possibility to visit a Bortle 3 or 4 location in less than an hour of driving.
Do yourself a favor, try to visit a really dark place, ideally with binoculars and a sky map and you’ll feel again connected with the Cosmos.
Here is a very good map to find a dark place: https://www.lightpollutionmap.info https://www.lightpollutionmap.info
Some extra info on the Bortle Scale: https://astrobackyard.com/the-bortle-scale/ https://astrobackyard.com/the-bortle-scale/
- hemloc_io 4y agoIt's honestly one of the coolest things I've ever done. It's not just about the brightness of the stars, the sky literally looks 3d, which I didn't expect
- NKosmatos 4y agoExactly this, you can almost feel the depth and get a broader look at the whole celestial dome. Be careful thought, since some people might get overwhelmed by this feeling of realizing your place in the universe. If I remember correctly there are a couple of related phobias, Astrophobia (fear of space) and Apeirophobia (fear of infinity). Something like the Total Perspective Vortex: https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex
- BizarreByte 4y agoThis has actually occurred to people who have visited me (as I mentioned in another post I’m in a class 2, just barely off of a class 1). I find it comforting, but one family member was throughly freaked out/overwhelmed. It was a clear, moonless night and they’d never seen something like it in their entire life.
- boredemployee 4y agoI have problems with black holes. Had panic attack watching Interstellar
- dreamcompiler 4y agoThen there's that time when L.A. residents called 911 when they saw the Milky Way for the first time during a blackout. https://timeline.com/los-angeles-light-pollution-ebd60d5acd43 https://timeline.com/los-angeles-light-pollution-ebd60d5acd4...
- markus_zhang 4y agoMy wife told me she would loose her control of the sphincter if she sees a sky full of stars. It is not exactly phobia but the feel of sort of galactic pressure.
- tbossanova 4y agoThis is one of those rare cases where you can use either “loose” or “lose” and it still makes sense!
- boredemployee 4y agodo you like bossanova or is it just a random username?
- tbossanova 4y agoBossa nova is great!
- seltzered_ 4y agowonder if theres a term for this akin to the "overview effect" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
- markus_zhang 4y agoShe mentioned she felt the stars were "falling" upon her. Could be the same effect?
- chasd00 4y agoI was in the Davis mountains at the McDonald observatory out in West Texas a few years ago. It was a new moon and after about an hour of letting my eyes adjust what was visible was almost overwhelming. Seeing satellites zoom across the sky under the backdrop of the entire universe was surreal.
- s0rce 4y agoPreferably in the summer when the milky way is visible, although the winter nights are longer and I usually manage to stay up late enough to see the stars. Remote mountain ranges in the Western US have had amazing views of the night sky (Steens, Santa Rosa Range, White Mtns, Argus Mtns).
- patchorang 4y agoWow. What an awesome map. You can even see major highways in the western US. I recently moved from the western US to the east. The public/opens lands are what I miss the most. I don't think many people out east even realize what public land is, how much there is, and how great it is. But this map really displays it. Side note: What's up with Alberta? Same with northwestern North Dakota? I'm guess this is mining and/or oil operations?
- mickdeek86 4y agoCan confirm: you're looking at Athabasca (the infamous tar sands) and Bakken, respectively
- Teever 4y agoits not just those industrial areas. For whatever reason urban centres in alberta just love to blast the shit out of the sky with street lights.
- themitigating 4y agoThey are illuminating the street for safety and street lights do point down but light reflects off surfaces.
- schaefer 4y agowhoa, What's all the light in western north dakota?!? 47.96732, -102.86034 there sure aren't many people there. are they just burning oil or natural gas straight off the well?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- destitude 4y agoYes, they burn the gas straight off all of the fracking wells. Having been there at night it literally looks like you are in hell with flames in all directions from horizon to horizon.
- triyambakam 4y agoInteresting. Apparently I live in a class three. For that I am grateful!
- 100pctremote 4y agoWhat the heck is going on in north western North Dakota? Is it related to the oil industry?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoYes. I asked the same question about a decade ago, when a new edition of NASAs Blue Marble, or in this case Black Marble for the night maps made its rounds through the mass media :-) You can have that as desktop background, with dynamically moving night/day terminator, and optionally real clouds and storm systems overimposed, btw :-) With programs like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xplanet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xplanet , but others too.
- destitude 4y agoYes, I've personally been there. It is all the fracking and oil companies being allowed to simply burn off all the excess gas coming out of the wells in order to get the "more valuable" oil. They could invest in small pipelines to transport the gas from the wells to be processed and sold but they don't care. It literally looks like a war zone with flames shooting out of the ground in every direction from horizon to horizon in that area. I don't know how people can even live there.
- jwdunne 4y agoI noticed the difference too when moving to a town just outside of Snowdonia in Wales, UK. It’s truly wonderful - you just don’t see it growing up in a city like Manchester. It’s Bortle 4 where I live and it drops down to 3 just 20 minutes down the road. One of the best perks of living here. Time is ripe to invest in a good telescope, I think :)
- CalRobert 4y agoI'm in the Irish midlands and can _just_ make out the Milky Way on a good night, but we've been getting more and more neighbours and they all have a fetish for bright uplighting. I'm sure the sky will be gone soon enough.
- dylan604 4y agoi've never understood the uplighting. what are they lighting? air doesn't light up unless is it's foggy. is it cheaper because they can just put the fixtures on the ground? it is just so ineffective i honestly struggle comprehend the purpose
- CalRobert 4y agoIt makes their house look fancy.
- madaxe_again 4y agoHeh - I come to my place in snowdonia and I lament the sky, as it’s a 4 - but then I spend the rest of my time in extremely rural Portugal, where my observatory lives, and it’s a 2 there. No accident - chose the spot in part because of the sky.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoI recently picked up a SkyWatcher Heritage 130p for my kids and it unexpectedly became a new obsession. I have plenty of light pollution where I am and it’s still amazing to check things out. The 130p gives approximately 3.5x the light your eye normally sees and it’s quite portable. It has been a great intro to astronomy for me.
- virtuallynathan 4y agoI bought a house out in the middle of nowhere in part for the dark sky. It's awesome to walk outside and see so much. Per this data, my house is at 19.9 μcd/m2, and if I drive/hike a few miles down the road, I can get to < 10 μcd/m2.
- avgcorrection 4y agoLifestyle? What’s commercial estates burning wattage overnight and residential buildings leaving their terrace lights on got to do with lifestyle?
- BizarreByte 4y agoI live within a Class 2 location and can get to a Class 1 in about a 20 minute drive. It’s one of the few things I actually like about where I live. In fact it’s probably the single best thing about where I live and it’s an extremely rare privilege to have in North America. I really need to take advantage of it and get a good camera/telescope.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- germinalphrase 4y agoBinoculars are a good starting point if you already have them.
- dylan604 4y agobinocs are good, but you still need a decent form of stabilization. I know I tend to shop higher end because I know what I'm getting, but by the time I've priced out support and the glass I've nearly arrived at the price of a telescope with much high magnification. so it all comes down to realistic expectation levels what can be seen. you don't want to spend the money and then be disappointed and get turned off to the experience as underwhelming.
- dwaltrip 4y agoA pair of 7x50s is small enough for most people to hold relatively stable with just your hands. You can also prop your arms up with pillows, etc.
- dylan604 4y agoModern day MFT cameras like Sony's A7 series have amazing low light (the older A7sii is still my favorite) for doing live views when attached to a telescope. it then can be used as your day-to-day camera at other times for multipurpose use. for DSOs, they are great. for solar system objects other than the moon, they're a little underwhelming since the actual object will be such a tiny percentage of the image. one thing to remember when buying gear is to only go as big as you can carry/assemble by yourself. getting something that requires 2 people to lift/carry means you can't use it unless you can convince someone to go along with you, we let's face it, it's definitely a hobby that leans towards the soloist. for someone like you that can do it from home without having to travel every. single. time. might be a bit less of an issue. just general advice for others that might come along the only regret i have in buying my gear is that i'm at least 4 hours to a class 2 site, and i no longer have a car of any type let alone one that fits all of my gear plus camping equipment.
- Krasnol 4y ago> Here is a very good map to find a dark place: https://www.lightpollutionmap.info https://www.lightpollutionmap.info This was depressing...I live in central Germany and 4 is the best I can get. Holland looks terrible. I guess it's because of the lack of hills/mountains.
- gnarcoregrizz 4y agoThe feeling of being able to see a dark sky on a moonless night is amazing. For me, it's very spiritual, especially at a truly dark site, after my eyes adjust and I'm immersed in it. It's no wonder they call it "the heavens." It makes me sad that some people will never be able to experience it, and that I don't get to experience it more often. The feeling of cosmic insignificance and unknown is oddly comforting. Sometimes I wonder if lack of dark skies correlates with people being less religious.
- bruce511 4y agoIf the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God! (I don't think I need to attribute this to this readership, but in case I do, it's by Emerson. And if you didn't know that, I strongly recommend googling Nightfall.)
- eps 4y agoThe original story is by Asimov actually.
- jacquesm 4y agoWell, technically the quote is from Emerson. https://eu.sj-r.com/story/news/2010/11/24/looking-up-stars-only-once/47336018007/ https://eu.sj-r.com/story/news/2010/11/24/looking-up-stars-o... But Asimov did write the short story inspired by the quote.
- lioeters 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_an...
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- boredemployee 4y ago>> Here is a very good map to find a dark place although great for seeing the sky, what happens on the African continent in terms of development is crazy and sad.
- wpietri 4y agoI'm in San Francisco, and it looks like my closest option is just heading due west. Anybody know if there are ocean-based star tours?
- winrid 4y agoThe Mendocino forest was where I spent the night one time for the Mendocino Rally, sleeping in the back of my truck, and the sky really looked 3D with all the stars.
- nullc 4y agoThe surface of the ocean is not great for star viewing because of the humid layer right at the surface. I grew up in Florida and was many times 100 miles off shore at night. I was never astounded by the night sky until I drove through the middle-of-nowhere in Oregon as an adult. I'd tell you to come up to norther Marin-- the prohibition on billboards here makes the night sky much darker than over the rest of the bay area. But it's gotten a lot brighter in just the last couple years--- the transition to LED outdoor lighting seems to be doing a tremendous harm. Two years ago the milky way was naked eye visible at my home on good nights. It doesn't appear to be anymore. You can still see the orion nebula and its blue h-beta glow with just some binoculars though.
- wpietri 4y agoThanks! Valuable info. And I'm very sorry to hear about your loss of sky!
- ehnto 4y agoI grew up in the sticks of Australia, and the Milky Way has always been a full and vivid texture of stars in my memory. Living in cities now I sometimes forget what I am seeing is the same night sky just much less vivid and visible. I should make an effort to see a clear night sky more often I think. Looking at the map, it was class 1 (artif brightness 0.067)
- angrygoat 4y agoI live in Perth – you don't have to go that far (maybe a hundred km) to get a good sky, but I rarely do. I was out at New Norcia recently, and it happened to be a very clear night. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing – the Milky Way so apparent, not just as stars but as a sort of texture to the sky. We lose a lot of perspective when we drown that out.
- roamerz 4y ago>>Here is a very good map to find a dark place: and here is where they get there dataset: https://dataservices.gfz-potsdam.de/contact/showshort.php?id=escidoc:1541893&contactform https://dataservices.gfz-potsdam.de/contact/showshort.php?id... Thank you btw. Informative post.
- makeitdouble 4y ago> Do yourself a favor, try to visit a really dark place, ideally with binoculars and a sky map and you’ll feel again connected with the Cosmos. Obvious caveat: bring light with you, enough to comfortably see at least 10m ahead when you're walking. Just as many of us are not used to dark skies anymore, we also seriously underestimate how dark it is in places with no habitations/street light and the moon is not out. I sometimes found myself in forests with almost no visibility if I cut my torchlight.
- hammock 4y agoWhy is there so much light coming from Keene, ND area (according to that map)?
- destitude 4y agoBecause there are huge flames of gas being burned off from fracking because it is cheaper for the oil companies to waste the gas in order to get the oil. Total and complete waste. Canada does not allow burning off of gas from fracking wells like that but the US does.
- hammock 4y agoIf we allowed more oil drilling there would be less fracking and less waste of natural gas
- markus_zhang 4y agoThis is definitely on my plan. It's going to be good for my mental health and my kid's curiosity. Do you have any recommendation for binoculars? Just checked I'm also a couple of hours away from 2-3 places. Canada is really vast with forests, lakes and tundras where no one lives in.
- sergiomattei 4y agoOnce a year in PR we get a whole-island blackout due to power grid incompetence The good part? You can see ALL the Milky Way for a couple nights.
- Schroedingers2c 4y agoThank your for this post, the map is amazing. Unfortunately I live in a class 8-9 (5190µcd/m2) location right now, but recently I have been to a class 2 (6.41µcd/m2) location and in moonless nights the sky was indeed fantastic and incredibly immersive. I have plans to move to the latter country in a few years time (for many reasons, but low population density and a lot of breathtaking nature/wilderness being among the top reasons).
- nly 4y agoSo in the UK you're basically going to Scotland or rural Ireland. Sad
- Insanity 4y agoI visited my family back in Belgium over the holidays - living in a village quite some distance from the nearest city . Being out at night I had a good view of the night sky and constellations. That made me. Realize how over the past year+ I had not seen stars (living in Toronto). Definitely something I was not acutely aware of before, and I hugely enjoyed being able to look up and see them again.
- smusamashah 4y agoI am lucky to have grown up in a village where we could see milky way at night with our naked eyes. A dim cloud of stars going from one end of sky to other.
- lampshades 4y agoGrew up in a Bortle 4 (spent a lot of time in a 3) and live in a Bortle 6 now. I miss the stars. My wife grew up in an 8/9. We drove out west onetime and she had never seen the stars so visible. I can’t imagine growing up not seeing stars, but my children are about to do just that.