Fun With Science

Bortle's Dark-Sky Scale

Once upon a time,poets wrote sonnets about the stars; musicians played ballets about them and some people even worshiped the glimmering points of light peppered about the heavens. Nowadays, most things make no mention of the universe beyond Earth's horizon. Perhaps some of that can be attributed to the lack of stars we generally see in the sky. Thanks for that, light pollution.

However, there are select places across the planet that contain little light pollution, thus they help us connect to the stars in a way that's not possible in big cities. Bortle's Dark-Sky Scale was devised as a way to help determine just how much of the Milky Way can be seen from various locations.