This Eerie, Starless Sky
This Eerie, Starless Sky - Cameron Byerly Published in St. John College's The Gadfly February 24th, 2016 Suppose, for a moment, that I could pluck a man from Ancient Athens, and bring him to this night. Suppose that I placed him next to me, on a hill overlooking our city. I imagine that he might look above us, then down to the hundreds of lights below, and conclude that we had succeeded in stealing the stars from the sky. I wouldn't have the heart to disagree. One often forgets that light pollution is a central characteristic of our night sky. Perhaps a reasonable percentage of us have seen pictures of the sky’s appearance to hikers far from electricity, but I’ve spoken to many that have not. The stars we look to are pathetically lacking compared to the naked sky. Until the 20th century, the sky humanity slept under had thousands of stars we can no longer see. photo credit: Hong Kong 22° 17' 55'' N 2012-03-23 Lst 14:54 THIERRY COHEN/DANZIGER GALLER ...