Most city dwellers don't know how much of the night sky has already been stolen by billionaires, because poorly planned, wasteful city lights have already drowned out the stars for them.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets I was in Utah in the middle of nowhere. I don’t remember it being like that anywhere else I had been. It was in 2007.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social capitol reef national park. We could see the Milky Way with the naked eye out there.
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@sundogplanets
Decades ago, in the Hungarian plain during a trip. Just a huge grassland with nothing to block the horizon, no light in sight... I woke up in the night, and wow. Just wow. The Milky Way was gorgeous, the stars were soooo numerous, the sky so immense in all directions... How small and lucky I felt
@sundogplanets
also, I've gone to the French Alps every summer for a few years now, and there the sky is always gorgeous at night. Even in the village, find a dark spot and just look up and bamThis year we did a bit of stargazing at night, in a valley away from the village, and seeing the glorious night sky with the dark voids of the mountains looming on each side is also quite an experience. Like the sky is being swallowed by something gigantic...
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Cayonlands, UT, spring 1997. Backpacked about 2 days in. No moon.
Comet Hale-Bopp.
The comet’s tail, not just visible to the naked eye but •vivid•, spanned at least 1/3 the width of the visible sky.
@inthehands @sundogplanets
Oh, this reminds me of where I was for Hale-Bopp! It was a small town in eastern Hungary, and I remember looking out of an office window across the jumble of central European rooftops each evening as it gradually traversed the sky. -
@spacelizard @sundogplanets The night I was there, as the sun went down the whole hillside exploded with the laughs of dozens, maybe hundreds, of kookaburras. Just to make it even better.
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RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/117063592703392163
Most city dwellers don't know how much of the night sky has already been stolen by billionaires, because poorly planned, wasteful city lights have already drowned out the stars for them.
@sundogplanets there’s an irony that city-dwelling is inherently better for nature – people clustered together in smaller dwellings need less land per person, less energy, etc. – but also disconnects people from nature
i like to think that we’ll figure out how to square that circle in future, with cities that are much more integrated into the natural world. i agree fighting back against light pollution is one important battle
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RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/117063592703392163
Most city dwellers don't know how much of the night sky has already been stolen by billionaires, because poorly planned, wasteful city lights have already drowned out the stars for them.
@sundogplanets It is the same with rest of the electromagnetic spectrum. We the radio amateurs operating in the HF bands have been affected by cheap LED lighting (LED is not the problem, the cheap PWM based power supply without proper filtering is). Even though the rules/law exists, no one is interested to enforce it. At around 6pm, the HF noise floor jumps by a few db and no signals are heard, especially in the lower HF bands. It is getting worse and worse every day to the point where city dwellers cannot operate and enjoy this hobby anymore. People have invented new ways like "parts/summits on the air" to combine other outdoor activities with radio. But no everyone can do that..
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When I visited last century, camping was at the base of Uluru. We arrived at night, and I was staggered to see it blotted out a lot of stars!
But yes, the stars out there were truly awe inspiring.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets Also the Mojave for me, specifically Fort Irwin, in April 1985. My battalion was on our rotation to the National Training Center which translated to a month in the desert.
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I am TOTALLY enjoying reading all these stories of awe and wonder as we get to gaze over "infinity's doorstep" with our own eyes.
This is what I am fighting for! This is what I want everyone to be able to do! It often feels like nobody cares about losing the sky, so reading how much it means to lots of people is incredibly energizing. Thank you, keep the stories coming.
"Infinity's doorstep"... This is where I'd love to be.
I need to find one, but in the south east of a crowded England, I think is going to be difficult.
I'll need to travel. Maybe up to the dark sky reserve in Northumberland
(it's not flat though.) -
Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets there are many! But a beach in the Sinai rates highly in my memory (it was nearly fifty years ago).
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@sundogplanets I remember, as a child, lying down on the ground at night, looking up and it changing my perception of gravity. The sensation stopped being looking "up" and became looking out. Felt like you could fall into the sky forever.
Even during daytime I can still get that sensation a bit if I lie like that. Once you've felt it, it stays with you. Feels important that people still get to have that.
I totally get this! You've reminded me of a moment I had as a child, looking up at the night sky. I was stood on an old log and, as I looked, I suddenly felt as though I was going to fall into it and had to hold onto my mum next to me. It was an amazing moment. (And thank you for reminding me of it!
)
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The world would be a much better place if everyone had easy access to infinity's doorstep, to realize how small we are, how unique and fragile our pale blue dot is.
You don't need a trip on a billionaire's rocket to get the "overview effect." You can do it by finding dark sky access, which is becoming harder and harder to get, partially due to billionaires' rockets.
@sundogplanets another thought experiment should be, how can people who are blind have an “overview effect" experience? A real question, since all of the “overview effect” experiences I've read about are visual.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets When I was 14, 1972, in my back yard in Ibadan, Nigeria, lying on my back on the ground, with the night sounds all around and the most enormous, star-filled sky I'll ever see.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
Best night sky experience for me was the Seychelles.
I was standing there, the ocean gently "breathing" against the sand and the milky way above us.
If you stared long enough, it felt like you were falling towards the stars. No planes, no satellites, nothing but stars above and gentle waves below.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets
For me it was in Maldives, just outside the resort where the milky way showed its glorious and complete magnificence. -
Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets A small freedom camping site at Haldane Bay in the middle of winter eight years ago. No pollution, no artificial light and a crescent moon, so everything in the sky was perfectly clear.
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets A hot tub in the Norwegian mountains in early spring. So clear, so many stars, and the milky way. And I wasn't cold even though it was -18°C
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Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?
For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).
Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.
@sundogplanets I guess:
a) Lying on the snow on the Brunt ice-shelf at Halleys III & IV Research stations during auroras but frankly any clear evening, not having previously seen the Southern Sky. Definitely that ‘clinging on to a whirling planet in an unfathomably large galaxy feeling’.
b) Being called outside, with mum and Tigger the cat (who’d rather have stayed warm inside) when my late, architect, and ever-enquiring dad had found some wonder-a planet, a clear moon in our 3” refractor.
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@sundogplanets I remember, as a child, lying down on the ground at night, looking up and it changing my perception of gravity. The sensation stopped being looking "up" and became looking out. Felt like you could fall into the sky forever.
Even during daytime I can still get that sensation a bit if I lie like that. Once you've felt it, it stays with you. Feels important that people still get to have that.
@fluffgar @sundogplanets I've felt something similar looking out at the ocean for as far as I could see nothing but flat blue and how small I felt in that moment.
And then later on a mountain ridge looking out towards the horizon and seeing nothing but mountains into the distance.
It doesn't quite capture the feeling of the infinite as looking at the stars but still it is truly awesome and makes one feel so incredibly small.
Like ocean:integers::sky:real numbers with size of infinities
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