Displaying items by tag: sky

When was the last time you saw the Milky Way? What, you say you’ve never seen it? Well, you’re hardly alone.

We live in a time when millions of people are growing up in urban areas where they are lucky to see a few stars now and then.

The night sky is being obscured by an over-abundance of light. What most folks don’t realize, and some refuse to believe, is that more light doesn’t make us safer.

Lots of light at night disrupts our sleep patterns, disorients plants, birds and other animals, and obscures the night sky, but it does not keep us safe. Research proves this fact – Google it. I heard this explained in a really great way once: criminals need light to see just like we do. What is going to attract more attention – a light switching on in an otherwise dark place, or a shadow in a lit place?

People aren’t content to light their homes or properties for safety anymore – some use lighting for dramatic effect. Some use lighting to scream “Hey, world, I don’t give a bleep how much I pay the electric company each month! I’m RICH!!” Lights shine upward through the branches of trees and spotlights illuminate the home’s façade.

(And don’t get me started on Holiday Lights – we have a neighbor who makes Clark Griswold look like a piker.)

It’s hard for me to imagine NOT knowing the Big & Little Dippers, Orion, Cassiopeia and Gemini’s twins. Or never to have seen the Milky Way – that view into the densest part of our galaxy that appears as a pale smudge across the sky. When I was first aware of the night sky, I thought it was just some thin, high clouds until I had the chance to view it through a telescope. Wow, seeing those billions of stars for the first time, I remember thinking to myself – “surely, we aren’t alone.”