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Comment by yawz | Hacker News Reader

It always saddens me to remember that with the arrival of electricity & technology we've truly lost the fascinating view of the cloudless night sky. I assume that in 15th century Korea it was much easier to notice changes in the night sky than it would be today.

(edit: typo)

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There are still several dark sky preserves (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark-sky_preserve) in the world, where the view will be just as good as 15th Century Korea.

Having spend several nights around Tekapo, which is one of the largest in the world. I would definitely say that it's worth trying to spend a night in one. The view of the night sky is stunning. You can see the Milky Way with the naked eye, and the sheer number of stars is magnificent.

> The view of the night sky is stunning. You can see the Milky Way with the naked eye, and the sheer number of stars is magnificent

Note that you can see the Milky Way with naked eyes also outside of reservates. Maybe most people forget this when living in a city, but all you need for a stunning sky view is to go to the next grassland on the countryside around your city. (And you need non-cloudy weather, of course.)

It might not be as perfect as in the preservates, but compared to what you see within a city, it is a huge difference. You see at least 10 times as many stars. And of course you see the Milky Way clearly.

(But beware that a beginner might mistake large, thin clouds for the Milky Way. Also, note that beginners might be confused by the sheer amount of stars, being unable to identify even basic star signs. The trick here is to visit the grassland on sunset, then wait for the dusk, and watch as more and more stars appear on the sky. The first seen (i.e. brightest) stars are usually easy to identify, then you see the brighter star signs, and finally have enough orientation to recognize the rest of the sky as it appears.)

I second the 'get to the observation point before sundown' advice. In some really dark places, there are so many stars that I even have a hard time picking out bright stars like Vega or easy constellations such as Cygnus, Orion, or the Big Dipper. Watching the stars come out makes this much easier, and as a bonus the planets really awe at dusk.

Also to note, make sure you go when it is a New Moon i.e., no moon in the sky.

Yep, as long as you're remote enough you can get a truly fascinating view.

Last summer I camped in Zion National Park and it was the first time I've seen the night sky with such clarity. I couldn't look away - I laid outside of the tent and just stared for hours.

The fact that we're in the midst of a big explosion is quite striking.

40 years ago my father worked in Mongolia. He never seen stars like there even in rural or very remote areas of Russia. The reason for that is elevation (over 2 km at place where he worked) and very dry air (it was on edge of Gobi desert).

In most of rural Australia you get an incredible view of the sky - particularly in the North of Western Australia and in the Northern Territory. It's an incredible view when you can see the milky way from horizon to horizon.

You don't have to go too far to find dark skies.

My wife and I rented a cottage at Sheep Dung just outside Boonville, CA, a few years ago. Ukiah was on the far side of the hills to the east, another range blocked the coast to the west, and the next closest big city was Santa Rosa -- far enough away not to cause light pollution. I got lucky because the Labor Day wildfires were east of Clear Lake and blowing smoke east toward I-5. It was the first time in my life I got to actually see the Milky Way with my own eyes.

I am in Bolinas right now, it's close to midnight, and I am going to close my laptop in a few seconds, and go out to look at the night Sky - which I did yesterday, and it was quite magnificent.

Since you posted that 20 hours ago, I'm sure you're done by now. But don't forget it can take 20 minutes to an hour to get your eyes fully adapted to the dark.

So don't go out for just a short time, plan to spend a while in the dark before fully enjoying the stars.

Yeah lots of rural areas in the US have very dark skies. I saw lots of shooting stars one night driving acros Utah, it was pretty incredible.

Seeing one an hour is average, seeing many _while driving_ sounds like it was a meteor shower. Did that happen to be around August 12, which is when the strongest shower of the year peaks?

Pretty close. End of July, 8 years ago. It was definitely more than one an hour, but not like what Is imagine a shower to be like. Maybe more like one every 15 minutes

The Perseids peak at around 60/hour, but I guess it's a lot less a couple weeks before.

The night sky from the Sierra Nevada (at altitude) -- even a "crowded" place like Tuolumne Meadows -- offers amazing night skies.

The Blackrock Desert in Northern Nevada is a wonderful place to see the night sky (except maybe this week)

Maybe the OP just means generally?

I used to live in Amsterdam and the light pollution was so bad [1] the night sky just looked like a dull grey, I remember how grateful I was to move away and get to view the night sky more frequently. Light pollution such as that found in Rotterdam is almost suffocating I find.

Sure travelling is an option, for kids? Not really.

[1] https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=9&lat=6819816&lon=5...

One of the things I really liked about living in NYC was that I actually got pretty familiar with the planets (because you can't really see anything else).

You don't even have to go that far. One of the nice things about hiking outdoors is you get far enough away from civilization to reduce or eliminate city glow. On the off chance you ever get tired of looking at all the stars and the milky way, you can also spot satellites flying overhead, especially just after sunset.

The western US has some large areas with almost no lights. Northern Nevada and Eastern Oregon are almost empty. North of Winnemucca, when starting to head west on highway 140, there is a sign, "Next gas 179 miles".

South Dakota too! Camped at the Badlands a few weeks ago and other than a little light pollution from nearby Wall, you could see everything. It was spectacular.

Ten days ago, weather gave us an excellent clear night, and the Milky Way was visible from my front door, in the middle of the neighborhood, even though we have old street lights and live in town.

I try to practice spotting the Milky Way in the midst of light pollution. Nothing like a real dark sky, but use an app on your phone to show you where to look, and with practice you can appreciate the skies from where you are.

(Every time I show someone the International Space Station, they think it is an airplane. It gets very bright, and apparent speed changes as it climbs towards zenith and back down again.)

Not just lost the view through light pollution but found loads of other bright things to stare at once the sun is down. I agree it's quite sad.

Humans have been staring at fire at night for our entire evolution.

True, but the spectrum and intensity a fire is much lower than today's incandescent light bulbs, fluorescences, LEDs, and screens.

And I was speaking more from the perspective of screen addiction, lured to watch TV and trawl social media. Not that staring into a fire is much more productive.

>we've truly lost the fascinating view of the cloudless night sky

We haven't truly lost anything, unless you're unwilling to travel for an hour or two away from light pollution. The sky is still there and you can still see it.

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