Night skies: as you travel, do you take time to look up?.
At this writing, it’s a time of meteor showers. The Perseids move across night skies in the northern hemisphere, the Southern Delta Aquariids light up night skies in the southern part of the globe.
You may, of course, explore night skies at any time of year.
As you do that, you will want to give yourself a bit of time, both to let your vision adapt and to let what is going on unfold.
Through times reaching back far beyond recorded history, people have looked to stars and planets in night skies for guidance about all sorts of things. Finding a way across a new landscape, finding the way home from a sea voyage, finding out the the earth’s place in an evolving universe, finding a way to faith in a changing world: those are just a few of the things popel have sought guidance about from the stars.
In your own explorations, you will want to find dark skies, if you can. Scientists tell us that more than 80% of the world is now affected in some way by light pollution.
Here are several ideas of places which are good for dark night skies. Some of them, indeed, are locations where people have been exploring night skies for those thousands of years.
The astronomer Galileo lived in Tuscany for a time, so perhaps it’s not surprising that this hilly region in the north of Italy with a climate lending itself to clear skies is a fine place for experiencing night skies.
You can visit Galileo’s former residence, too, and explore the work of scientists at Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory just outside Florence.
Ireland is not always known for its clear night skies but when they occur the island of Ireland is an excellent place to see the stars. Outside the main cities you can experience very dark night skies in rural areas anywhere in the island.
When you follow that link above, you will find out about the Kerry Dark Sky Reserve on the Iveragh Peninsula in Ireland’s southwest. Archaeologists have found that stone circles in Kerry helped people follow the movements of the stars, and that inscriptions in ancient Ogham script are observations of what was going on in the night skies. There’s information about other places in Ireland where looking up at night skies is especially good, too.
The standing stones at Calanais, on the isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland, may have been set as they are to help people track the movements of the moon.
Other standing stones across Scotland are thought to be connected to understanding the heavens, too.
Scotland takes active interest in night skies these days too.
There are two international dark sky parks, the Tomintoul and Glenlivet/Cairngorms International Dark Sky Park in the north east and north central part of the country, and Galloway Forest Park in the southwest.
There dark sky communities in Scotland as well, among them the islands of Coll and North Ronaldsay and the community of Moffat.
When skies are clear, many places in the far north of Scotland and the western and northern isles are especially fine places to explore the stars.
A number of national parks in the United States, notably those in the western states, have been recognized by the International Dark Sky Association. Find out about some of these in this story on stars and travel in North America.
There are suggestions of places to explore dark skies in Canada in that story as well. Among those are Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia and the town of Bon Accord in Alberta.
The southern hemisphere has many places to explore the night sky as well.
The Atacama region in Chile is known for its clear skies as well as a number of renown observatories to which you can book visits.
Warrumbungle National Park in New South Wales is Australia’s dark sky park.
As you might suppose, the outback offers many places so see night skies clear of city lights, and there are plenty of other places along Australia’s coasts and inland as well to seek out clear night skies.
The first International Dark Sky Nation is Niue, which an island east of Tonga and northeast of New Zealand.
In New Zealand, Liz has tips on what to do and when to visit to experience dark skies and explore the stars, as well as details on Aeoteoroa Stonehenge.
There scientists have created a replica of Stonehenge in England — but one that traces the voyages of the navigators of Polynesia. Aeoteoroa Stonehenge is, Liz points out, a great place to learn of ancient culture and travels as well as of modern day astronomy.
That connection of night skies exploration past and present is one that is made in many of the officially designated locations, observatories, communities,and parks.
You may find that connection on your own, too, whether you are looking at night skies at the forests of the Cape Breton Highlands, on the beach in Western Australia, near those ancient standing stones in Scotland, or one of the many other places in the world where night skies intrigue you.
Take time to pause and look up.
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Photograph of bonfire in British Columbia by James Wheeler from Pixabay
Photograph of Carlingford Lough looking toward Mourne Mountains by Kerry Dexter.
Interesting exploration ideas