Most people who live in the cities or suburbs don’t see many stars. Certainly fewer than a hundred.
A journalist friend who grew up in the country once wrote a newspaper piece on myths about the Milky Way and was surprised when I pointed out that most of his readers had probably never seen it. The edge-on glow of our galaxy’s arms was part of the familiar landscape to him.
I’ve been to some remote places that had good “seeing,” which is what astronomers call the viewing conditions. Clear still air. I remember three that were so extraordinary they nearly overwhelmed me. Instead of a hundred stars, you’d swear there were a hundred thousand. So many stars, so bright and dense, that I couldn’t find even the most familiar constellations among them. So much starlight it felt heavy.
One: I was a Boy Scout, maybe 12, camping in the Sierra Nevada, sleeping bare-faced under the sky. Two: I was driving home from college, near the border between Napa and Sonoma counties in northern California, where I pulled my car over to gape. Three: a few years ago near Taos, New Mexico, when the Milky Way was truly bright enough to read by.
My freshman astronomy professor said that most people only pay attention to the world below their eyeline, ignoring the half of the universe that’s overhead. To be fair, in many spots there’s not much to see up there. But in the right spot, it’ll take your breath away.
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