Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
―
It’s estimated that over 80% of people in North America have never had a clear view of the Milky Way galaxy.
Light pollution washes away the faint starlight and as our population grows, so does the light pollution.
Outside my back door, I can only see the brightest of stars. I have to travel half an hour from my home before I can catch a glimpse of the Milky Way, almost two hours from home to get a good view of it.
When I travel to places like Yellowstone National Park, which has truly dark skies, the sight of the Milky Way blazing overhead is a humbling experience and one that makes you realize how fragile life is on this planet.
A night under dark skies is truly something everyone should experience. We are after all, made of star-dust.
Even though light pollution is an ongoing obstacle to dark skies, organizations like the International Dark Sky Association works with communities to limit the amount of light that is bounced into the night sky while still providing safety and security that lights provide.
They also identify and establish Dark Sky Parks and Reserves which are certified as having dark skies.
These parks and reserves are realizing that people want to connect with the stars and that working to minimize light pollution results in an influx of money from people travelling to find that connection.
Recently, I completed as film about light pollution from the perspective of the Milky Way. As I continue to film the night sky, I will keep adding to the film to showcase the beauty the shines above us in the darkness.
Let me know what you think of the film and please leave a comment below if you’d like to learn how you can capture the night sky with your own camera.
“Forgotten, it’s a lonely thing to be, but it was not always so. There was once a day when people in every corner looked upon me in the quiet of night with the greatest awe and reverence. My billions of stars lit up the darkness like a glowing ribbon of white smoke and cinders, stretched across the night sky. Men, women, and children everywhere contemplated in the stillness my beauty, my enormity, and the meaning of it all. Always above you, I watched as you harnessed fire to protect yourself from wild animals and to tame the land for your own purposes.
In time, I witnessed the advent of electricity and your ability to read and work well into the night. I watched as your numbers grew and you created more and more light to protect yourself from one another. You became greedy for light, just as you became greedy for everything else you believed would make your lives easier. Now, with your great lights along your highways, surrounding your workplaces, spotlighting your marketplaces, flashing throughout your cities, you have obscured me from your sight. You are turning the distinct beauty of the starlit sky into a veil of electric haze. You are turning the night into day. With you, there is no quiet. There is no rest. There is no night.
Discounted, neglected, I’m still with you, still sparkling, still glowing, always ready to show the way, waiting, but only from the remotest of places can you now see me. Only from the highest mountains and most sheltered, secluded wildernesses can you look upon me to reverence me and to drink in the pure beauty of my light, to experience your own smallness. In the face of a universe beyond your very imaginations, under those few remaining remnants of night sky, you may sit. There you may contemplate in your finite minds my infinite, unfathomable depths. If you listen carefully to my silence, you will be reminded long before you ever walked upon the earth I was here. When you have taken your last step, I will be here. Long after your walk is finished, I will yet be here. Your little lights, many and mighty though they seem, can’t hold a candle to mine.”
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