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Comment by illys | Hacker News Reader

I remember the night sky of the 80's in the property of my grand-parents, South of France during the summer holidays: in my early years we had a clear view of the Milky Way... But every year, a larger share of the night sky was turning orange: the near-by city was extending.

Nowadays there are lamp posts on their land and no remaining starts: when they passed away, the city was in the end of their road, becoming a street, and a dozen houses was built on my childhood fields.

Time has passed, and I don't know where I can show the Milky Way to my children.

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At the Oregon Star Party! After you eye are dark adapted (an hour) see your shadow on the ground from the light of the Milky Way.

https://oregonstarparty.org/

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/44.3092/-120.2062&laye...

Perhaps more usefully, contact your local Astronomy clubs.

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-clubs-organizations/

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Astronomy+club+France&t=ffsb&ia=we...

Central Oregon has some amazing night skies. Went to Hancock Field Station as a kid for astronomy camp and it was incredible.

Rural areas in the PNW are about a 2 on the Bortle scale, and the stars are strikingly vivid. The first time I saw Starlink with my own eyes, I was making an alpine start on Mt St Helens. The cluster of satellites against a backdrop of bright stars was breathtaking, and I got this powerful sense that we were truly conquering the heavens. You could call this another form of light pollution, but it made a pretty big impression on me. It felt more like science fiction than reality.

I'm guessing there is a local effect of the Bortle scale because when the skies were clear we clearly saw about 30 Starlink sattelites and according to https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ we live in an area with Bortle class 8-9, the algorithm for calculating the Bortle class seems to be a bit work intensive. https://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/bortle.html

Starling visibility is due to how far up they are and only visible for a while after launch. Once they're in position you shouldn't be able to see them.

A couple of years ago I had a coworker ask me if I had ever seen the Milky Way, after he had finally seen it for the first time. He must have been maybe 25 at the time. I was taken aback by the question, and felt sad for him that he had never experienced this awesome sight.

It's never too late I guess, but this made me wonder what proportion of people had never had this opportunity. I've read stories of people calling 911 to report strange lights in the clear skies when it was visible; some of those are likely apocryphal but I'm sure it happens.

You can, just go for a camp once in a while

People say this but I've been in like interstates and such and never seen the milky way??

Visit the desert, well off any major highway and it will be very low light pollution. The Southwest has a lot of land like this.

As a 20-something I spent some time in India when backpacking from England to Australia. One of my strongest memories was a safari we did out into the desert on camels, and just laying beneath the night sky. I never would have guessed at that age you can just literally watch satellites go by. I counted about a dozen "shooting stars" before I stopped counting (which is just objects burning up in the atmosphere on entry). The vividness of the clouds of stars was just breathtaking. Never seen anything close to it since.

Great story thanks for sharing. I am from India, and having heard your story, I may try that in the future. Which specific place did you do this in? Near some town or village in Rajasthan? AFAIK that's the only Indian state that has desert (the Thar desert), except for maybe bordering Gujarat state.

Are you making sure to pay attention to the moon cycle? It's important to go at a new moon and definitely not during a full moon

1) Go camp

2) Ensure clear skies

3) Ensure new moon

4) Ensure camp ground is dark

5) Ensure it's warm enough that everyone is happy enough to stay out

6) Ensure it gets dark early enough

It's doable, you have to specifically aim for it though

7) leave the phone in the car/tent/pocket

Even the dimmest display is far brighter than what you want to see.

New moon not totally necessary. Look at moon rise and set times.

Yeah that could be it, not particularly minding moon cycles when just traveling from one city to the other one.

Eyes have to dark adapt, No light, seriously; NO WHITE LIGHT. Takes about 45 minutes to be fully adapted one little flash and you start over.

This is why there are pages out there on astronomy/star party etiquette.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=+star+party+etiquette&t=ffsb&ia=we...

Have to get well off the interstate.

I thought I would see some good stars going across Nevada but despite a hundred miles between towns there was always a brightly lit truck stop not far off. And like my sibling comments - nothing kills your night vision like oncoming headlights.

I was pulled over on a rural utah highway in the middle of the night once, leaning back on the hood of my car letting my eyes adjust, and when I finally started to see the fainter stars, I witnessed what I took to be something angelic, blinding white light flying right above me.

I was stunned for a moment but once the car passed from behind me I put it together that their brights bounced off a bat flying low above me.

I had a couple of weeks in Cyprus a few years back,

  * Bortle Class 3-4
  * Artifiical brightness 81.7 μcd/m2

according to https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

It was lovely and clear every night, I could not only see the ISS pass, I saw something dimmer following it at the same speed - I later found out it was a Dragon cargo capsule

Still very difficult to pick out anything milkyway ish.

I live in

  * Bortle Class 4
  * Artifiical brightness 375 μcd/m2

Can currently pick out the usual - Cassiopea, Orion, Ursa Major, etc, not the milky way. It's usually overcast.

However for picking out a decent number of stars - I was pleasantly surprised one evening on Manly Beach in Sydney (1350 μcd/m2) to be able to see a fair amount of (unfamiliar) stars. I don't go south of the equator much, and when I do it tends to be for work and I'm in a city - I had some time in Sydney though, and it was clear.

I live in a rural Australian city and can regularly see the Milky Way from my back yard on clear cold nights. We do get light pollution from the city around me if there’s any type of moisture or even the tiniest amount of cloud but that just makes the Milky Way itself blend in and the stars themselves are still incredible.

I moved here from a big city so I never get sick of it, regularly just lying on my back on the grass and staring for a bit while taking the bins out at night.

Despite being a big fan of the idea of Starlink etc, I do (literally) see the concerns about their sky pollution though. It’s very jarring how many more satellites you see moving around the sky in the last few nights and they’re bright enough to cause you to require a few minutes adjustment afterwards until you can see the dimmer stars in the areas they’ve passed. Eg they basically “wash out” anywhere they’ve been for a while.

It's that adjusting that's the problem in the UK - it's winter that the nights are dark enough at a reasonable time, which means sitting outside in the dark with no lights for an hour at near freezing temperatures.

* Bortle Class 8-9 * Artificical brightness 8650 μcd/m2

Ah, London, truly world class.

(Although I suspect there's parts of Greenwich Park where you could get it down to a 6, maybe? Top end, near the tea hut, if anyone is familiar. Middle of Oxleas Wood as well except that's obviously full of trees blocking the sky...)

It's an interesting experience where you live in a place to pick out the usual constellations like you mentioned and get used to finding them with ease, but take the trip to the dark sky spots and be blown away how those seem to disappear in the noise of the rest of the sky. It always takes a wee bit for me to get my bearings. And I love having to do it each time as it reminds me to slow down and enjoy being away from it all to where that view is possible.

Pinnacles national park will do nicely.

Argentinian Patagonia. I was there in December. Drove 30min on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere and I found myself in space. We even saw that comet that’s flying nearby with just binoculars

Go for a holiday on the island of Formentera, south of Ibiza and only accessible by boat. It sounds expensive but it really isn't.

In the middle of summer at 1-2AM there is the most incredible view of the Milky Way, it really is breathtaking.

if you ever find yourself in the area, Mt. Rushmore has free parking at night and despite the monument itself being lit, there's pretty much no other lights for quite a ways, such that on a clear night the Milky Way is visible all around it, it's pretty stunning.

Nimbyism is rampant the developed world over.

As is trolling.

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