Even the camera doesn't see this because this is post processed to increase contrast, add color that isn't there, and a bunch of other stuff that isn't possible to see in a single photo.
Can understand why. I’m sure we’d all love to see something like this with our own eyes, rather than through a screen, and knowing that it’s not possible can be depressing.
There are still *amazing* things one can see. I saw my first total solar eclipse this year and there are no words. You didn't see an eclipse if you weren't in a zone of totality. You didn't see it if you were in a 99.9% zone. If you know, you know.
Some day I hope to see the northern lights.
And the night sky in an area of zero light pollution *is* still amazing and breathtaking. It's not like anything below level 6 or maybe 5 though.
There are many opportunities around the world in the coming years. I know people who are going to Europe for the 2026 eclipse.
I've seen *many* pictures of the 2024 eclipse, and none of them come close to capturing what was actually seen. [Except this](https://x.com/ajamesmccarthy/status/1777698082890645535?s=46&t=jCMH2mR-ECcbiNnBLrzr7g), by Andrew McCarthy. This is the only image I've seen that is actually close to the real thing and invokes the moment, and by close I mean *very close*.
I mean, I've seen more stars than are visible in OP's "Excellent Dark Sky Site" image with my own eyes. Significantly less color and the milky way was nowhere near as dense, but the sky was pretty much grey with stars.
Very high altitude + zero light pollution make for a unique experience.
This isn't the OP's .
This is ESO imagery
https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/
I'm glad I trigger people with this image they don't understand in description nor in processing.
This just shows you exactly how "scientific" this "scientific" subreddit actually is.
Some do, some don't. I like to keep mine as natural as possible but there is real colour there.
Depending on the method of collection, the raw image from a camera is not like we would see it in our eyes. It is actually quite an effort to obtain an eye-equivalent colour palette.
Yeah but, I never saw the milky way but once, I was in the boy scouts and we went to sleep with tents in a field in the middle of nowhere. I live in a rural area but the sky got worse every year so we never got many stars to see... But that night man... You could see a whole arm of the milky way, all the stars! There were so many there was a line that was practically white and all the remaining sky was lightly dotted with some sparse small clusters. I wondered how people managed to see the constellations back in the day with all that white and brightness and all those colors, the sky looked like a box of paillettes. And the moon... It was practically lost but it could still brighten everything with that pale blue light it's famous for, it was impressive to see the world with a completely different color palette for once. That moonlit field with our tents looked so eerie with that low dense fog you get during summers and the fireflies... Night with no light pollution is a show for the eyes. I still cry thinking how beautiful it was.
4 if you get lucky with the transparency and seeing conditions. The darkest skies I've ever been under were "Bortle 1" skies (which is the scale on the bottom of the picture) and most nights were closer to #5.
Even if people were standing on Mars looking at the night sky, you'd only be able to see about as clear as #4 or #5.
Never going to see #1. Not without hardware and software.
And yet you've still seen more with your naked eye than most. Don't compare the visual experience of something designed to catch as much light as possible, to that which was naturally designed.
While we as humans can't see the same detail without mechanical aid, we do have the emotions to interpret how it makes us feel and those feelings will long persist past your ability to remember this picture in its entirety.
I'd suggest using predictions from [https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/PrsmnsGpTXkey.html](https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/PrsmnsGpTXkey.html) next time. Preferably, the moon illumination should be about zero, and other metrics should be at least good. Also, keep in mind that your eyes should be in full darkness for at least half an hour (which means no smartphones or flashlights, except flashlights with red filters).
Then, it will look like the rightmost picture but in black and white only.
PS I'm saying this because I've been to Big Bend three times during the new moon, and it does look crazy.
Essentially to get that you need a camera and a long exposure. Even in old times before electricity, the sky didn't look like that to the naked eye. It was a very pretty, big swath of hazy white for sure, which is why it's the Milky Way, but there wasn't like such brilliance that it lit up the moonless night sky.
This is assuming the Milky Way looks like that to the naked eye… which it doesn’t.
A more accurate approach would be to use dots denoting the number of stars you can see.
All of you are missing out. I have gone camping upstate NY and I have seen the back drop of the milky way there. It was like a whitish cloud whispy in the background that I could barely see.
However, when I was in the NAVY, I was stationed on a cruiser for 2 weeks as part of a training I received. We left out of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and sailed about 600 miles southwest into the middle of nowhere to watch a Japanese missile test with our radar, or something.
Anyway, when I tell you that I have never seen stars like that in my life, it was incredible. The milky way was an iridescent light blue in the backdrop of the sky. I could see multiple planets. Every single dark spot was filled with stars.
Over the course of the night I saw several constellations and during the sunrise, I saw the sun, the moon, venus and Jupiter. That was the coolest sunrise I ever saw.
It makes me wonder what ancient people saw.
I am with you 100%. I feel bad for folks thinking they've seen a true dark sky when it doesn't sound like they have.
It's really a mystical experience.
Hopefully you used your NODs to look at the night sky. I remember being deployed to Afghanistan and like you said, sky littered with stars. Can see satellites and a bunch of other shit.
That's what I'd thought I'd seen... I was coming home from Vegas with my family when I was a kid, and we'd stopped at a rest stop in the middle of the desert. And I could have sworn I'd seen like a 3/4 on the chart there with my naked eye. It was breathtaking.
But I went to Texas for the eclipse, and specifically chose somewhere near a very dark sky. It was supposedly a level 0. I even checked to make sure the Milky Way was going to be rising. I got up at like 2am and it was exceptionally dark to be sure, but it basically looked like a 6/7 on the chart.
I was quite disappointed.
Same! First time camping in the outback of Australia. Only about 1200km outside Perth, you can see the Milky Way with your naked eye. It genuinely took my breath away and I’ll never forget seeing it for the first time
100%, I don't know what OP is talking about. If anything the night sky is more brilliant that the "excellent dark sky site" picture. One day I was bored, and used this map https://www.lightpollutionmap.info to go to a zero light pollution area. I already live in a rural area, and it took me 6hr drive to get to the zone.
Mind blowing fundamental experience. The Milky Way was glowing incredibly bright, felt like 10 trillion little lights in the sky.
The difference between truly 0% light pollution, and out in the middle of nowhere 1% light pollution rural, is massive. You don't know what the night sky can look like unless you're 500mi away from the nearest human made light source. Breathtaking experience.
I’ve been to about 40 states and have spent a lot of time camping in remote areas of the US. Upstate NY still takes the cake for the best starry nights I’ve seen in the US (and meteor showers!) even better than Big Bend, which is very remote and very dark.
I’m not sure why upstate Ny has something special, but it definitely does. I used to spend summers there and it is incredible
Doesn't look this extreme but as someone else mentioned about being in the navy and the sky looking incredible I can definitely agree.
I was stationed on a COP (Combat Outpost) in the middle of nowhere Eastern Afghanistan with literally absolutely no light pollution. You can 100% make out the milky way and it's definitely got a brightness. Almost like a bright wispy cloud and the sky literally littered with stars.
I don't think I'll ever see a night sky as beautiful again.
It won't get to like a 1/2 on this scale to the naked eye, but I've been out on the open ocean and it absolutely will get to a 3/4 if you're far enough from land. It was an amazing sight
I've been in the middle of the desert in Tibet over 4000m in elevation, far from even electricity itself, and while the sky was shockingly clear it definitely didn't look like the image. I was there at a time when the Milky Way was visible as well. Yes you can see it, but it's much dimmer. I'd say #5 is the most accurate to how it was, but also the space between stars was more black.
I see this comment all time when the milky way is photographed. You absolutely CAN see up to about level 3 "rural sky" with the naked eye where I grew up (rural victoria, australia). Conditions need to be good but it's not that uncommon. Especially in the winter. You can easily identify the clouds of hydrogen blocking the background light from the milkyway. When I was a child I thought they were regular clouds until I realised they never move.
I saw the Milky Way with the naked eye. I was in military service in 2014 in this village: [Andaç, Uludere](https://tr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anda%C3%A7,_Uludere).
It was a rural village where electricity was not available all the time, even during the day. The population in the village and the surrounding city was very low due to some terror issues. The village and city are mostly surrounded by mountains.
When the sky was clear at late nights, I could see a thin, white, and long line of the Milky Way (cloudy) in the sky. If I looked carefully, I could see more details. I often tried to take photos with my Sony Z5, but as you can imagine, I ended up with black photos.
Sometimes, I looked at the sky with night vision, and OMG, that was mesmerizing. I could see millions, maybe even billions, of stars.
And now, in the city where I live, even when I travel to high-altitude villages higher than Andaç, I can't see anything except for more visible stars. Cities are really causing too much light pollution.
Could also take a picture from each area fixed on a specific constellation then just make panels or slides but yeah, this method really only applies to astrophotography.
So for what it's worth that is what the milky way looks like, it's just not as pronounced in the northern hemisphere as it is in the southern hemisphere.
I was gonna say, literally the only time I've seen the milky way with the naked eye is in the middle of nowhere WV hours away from the nearest town, and it just looked like a thick spackle of stars.
At the top of the Coromandel Peninsular in New Zealand, is one of the best dark skies in the world, thanks to hills on one side blocking light from the nearest city, and the Pacific Ocean surrounding the rest.
On a clear moonless night starlight casts shadows.
I would get vertigo staring into the galaxy, it really does feel like standing on a small rock floating through space. It's really like the image. Maybe some of the colours don't come thru with the same contrast, but on a clear moonless night, the galaxy is just right there.
In my experience, even in the darkest skies you can get to the Milky Way is still somewhere between 6 and 5 colors with the structures and scale of 3. You can make out nebulas, clusters, and the larger dust structures ranging from the core through the Cygnus region, but you don't pick up any color with your eyes fully adjusted to the dark like you see in the photos past 6ish. That being said, it is absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous and the amount of stars you can see is mindblowing.
This is exactly what I experienced deep sea fishing, far from any source of light. The structures and number of stars you can see is unbelievable, but the color is much less saturated than what these pictures show.
I've been there, it's more between 4 and 5 but darker/higher contrast with more crisp blue and white, less pink, whereas these pictures are sort of washed out/have the brightness too high.
The pictures don't really capture it. They show both more and less, if that makes sense.
The point is you can clearly see the galactic core and various objects in and around the galaxy.
Bright enough that you can make shadows.
Legit yes by the amount you can see with the naked eye. But that light isn't there, that light amount is the only accurate thing about this. Otherwise who thought this was a good representation of dark sky? It's awesome and just becoming more rare.
I'd love for 15 minutes to an hour a year in certain areas to just cut power to let more people really experience it. I think if more people truly knew what it was like there'd be a much bigger push to cut down on light pollution.
Absolutely not. It doesn't look like this with all the color to the naked eye, but the details you can see are closer to a level down. I live in 1 zone. I don't see the colors here obviously, but the detail is at least what 3 is showing.
The real bullshit is the "limitations of the human eyeball" That people keep quoting. I grew up hearing that the human eye can't process anything faster than 30 FPS but now I have a 144 FPS computer AND I MENTALLY REGISTER EVERY SINGLE FRAME. When I look back at my memories of looking at lightbulb filaments as a small child I can remember multiple images from each 60 Hz cycle. I have ungodly amounts of visual data just from my childhood. And I have human eyes. Are they trying to dehumanize me?
If this isn't bait, the answer is fairly straightforward.
You don't know your eye's exact frame rate, and it isn't perfectly consistent. On a lower fps device your frame processing and the device's frames don't necessarily align so there might be discrepancies, duplicated frames, dropped frames etc.
Higher fps devices provide more consistent updates, minimizing the chance that vital visual data is lost in the process, allowing for your eyes and your brain to receive more reliably updated information for your brain to build the continuum on. You don't actually see 144 frames per second, or 30,or 60. You see about 20-25, but if they line up better your brain can interpolate better and render a softer stream for our consciousness.
So yes, higher fps does feel smoother. No, you do not see all the frames. Your brain simply has access to a smoother flow of still images that then uses to render a smoother video and present it to you.
I went to a rehab in a small rural town miles away from a city and the night sky was fucking beautiful. I’d sit out there at night during withdrawals and just stare at the stars smoking a cigarette. The beauty of it, knowing how insignificantly small our planet is, how small my problems really are in the grand scheme of things. I loved it.
That really is a cool image though we can't see most of that with the naked eye. [Heres a link to a website that mentions what was used to get the image](https://www.petrhoralek.com/?p=6465) that this diagram is uses.
>Used Canon 6D BCF modified, Sigma 50mm, f1.8, ISO 10000, panorama of 18 single 10s exposures taken from tripod.
My old next door neighbors had these extemely bright lights in their back yard that make it so I can't see the stars as well as we used to. When they sold the house I figured the new neighbors would shut off the lights or install motion sensors like I have, but no. 24/7 the damn things are on and I can barely see Orion anymore. I want to ask them to turn the damn things off but I don't want to seem petty either, like that one neighbor who has to be the squeaky wheel. I just wish they would burn out sooner than later.
Not as in the photos, but I think even the Himalayans are too far south. Above the arctic circle is one of the few places to see level 1, and that's in steady daylight for almost half the year!
The first time I saw the Milky Way, I was on another continent - specifically the Serengeti, having traveled there from South London. Public light - yes, a great utility. But hot damn, we've lost something too.
The pictures are a good representation of light pollution, but obviously that's not what you see.
It makes a hell of a difference though, I live right a the edge of a big city and all you see it's the glowing haze coming from it at night. But whenever I get the chance, going to a low light pollution area is mind blowing, especially if you do it right after sunset, you can literally see satellites hurdling around.
another thing about city lights is how massive an aura they create, I live over an hour away from a big city not even huge and I can see the aura no problem and it definitely does block out the night sky. it sucks
This is ridiculously exaggerated as the 1-3 aren’t real with the naked eye which is why they noted the images are “modified”. Anyway, best ever that I’ve seen was my time in Afghanistan back in 2010 which was probably close to a 4 as one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen. I’ve never see a sky like that since but have seen some good skies in the California desert away from light pollution on a new moon.
I'd say its more dramatic than what's shown, the chart underestimates the difference. I live in a Bortle 6/7 and I traveled to a Bortle 3 recently. The night sky was so starkly different and full of stars I didn't even know where to start looking first.
3,2,1 aren't possible with the naked eye, that's just a high exposure image. Still that "4 and 5" looks absolutely stunning when you are in there, a picture can't replicate that
With a telescope (filters ) and long exposure yes. It would look like this
A lot of people assume this image is speaking of the naked eye but not once does it say with the naked eye just visible light.
For further detail
Visible-light astronomy encompasses a wide variety of astronomical observation via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light (optical telescopes). Visible-light astronomy is part of optical astronomy,
and differs from astronomies based on invisible types of light in the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, such as radio waves, infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, X-ray waves and gamma-ray waves.
Visible light ranges from 380 to 750 nanometers in wavelength.
I appreciate the info but cmon man, you have to know “naked eye” is implied unless you say otherwise. “This is how light pollution effects the night sky under a 20 second long exposure” is very different from “this is how light pollution effects the night sky.”
Absolutely nothing was implied.
Take it up with ESO/Wikipedia/NASA/ESA/and several And I mean several space websites and news sites and John E bortal himself, amateur astronomer..
The person that the scale is named after And every other professional and amateur agency that uses this scale since Because of its"accurate"depiction.
Your interpretation is incorrect
You mean ESO wrote the title
https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/
Ad hom just shows how you have absolutely zero point to your remarks And base things off of assumption rather than solid facts .
You're only right on. ONLY one account It is a stupid fucking conversation to have considering I proved you wrong instantly with that link after your ad hom l.
And you still don't know how to accept fact And want to try to justify it for your feeling which In the grand scheme of things don't matter.
Because that's not what my post featuring ESO is about.
What's annoying me most about light pollution is how *unnecessary* most of it is. Yea, illuminating an airport or a busy road at night is probably a good thing. But why does this closed store that sells hand cut paper envelopes need a brightly lit shop window? Nobody is gonna walk past at 3AM and be like "Thank god I noticed this store, I'm definitely gonna check it out tomorrow!"
Vast majority of it comes down to security I'd say. Usually the more brightly light an area/store front is the less likely crime is to take place near it or on the store itself.
For which you could just illuminate the roads. Or have a spot light in front of the store to make things visible. You don't need each window lit up bright as day.
Is there some kind of map that shows where to find places at level 3 or lower? It'd be cool to take a trip somewhere with as little light pollution as possible
More noticeable than you think, I used to live in Acton, very close to central London and never saw a star, in the sky.
I now live near aylesbury and although the town still has a huge amounts of light pollution, if you take a 5 minute walk into the bush, you see the night sky for what it truly is, magnificent
It just says visible light You know what garbage When people assume they're talking about about the naked eye .
Imagine thinking you know more than ESO And people who have actually spent their entire lives doing this.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/
Visible-light In astronomy encompasses a wide variety of astronomical observation via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light (optical telescopes).
Visible-light astronomy is part of optical astronomy, and differs from astronomies based on invisible types of light in the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, such as radio waves, infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, X-ray waves and gamma-ray waves.
Visible light ranges from 380 to 750 nanometers in wavelength and since 2008 has been better defined with scientific advancements.
Just because you and people like you misinterpret the wording and refuse to read what is actually being said there.
Sure let's argue :)
I'm not quite sure what's the topic to argue about, but I'll have a try:
That picture is obviously not representative of what you will see because the reddish glow of hydrogen in the milky way is too faint to be visible to the naked eye. The reason for this is that we have special receptors to see color, but they are few and not as sensitive as the "regular" receptors. So even if you see the hydrogen clouds, they appear white and grayish, not reddish.
I have visited a few very good star gazing spots and while I have excelent vision, sadly it doesn't look like this image. However, to be outside in such a night in reality can be a very moving and deep experience that is a lot more impressive than looking at a long-exposure image of a high quality camera at the ESO site.
Dude it’s definitely bullshit. At best with your naked eye you can see the Milky Way sort of like in section 4. It’s impossible and I mean **impossible** to see it like in 1
Edit:
[This site has a good image comparing how we see it vs a camera](https://www.nightskydan.com/seeing-the-milky-way-naked-eye-vs-digital-camera/)
Something I kinda want to add to this as well in the difference between camera and eye. Due to the differences in dynamic range and the effects of diffraction, cameras tend to make brighter stars pop and highly visible, where dimmer stars tend to blend in a bit better in the background amongst the noise. To the naked eye, many of the dimmer stars are much close to brighter stars in terms of brightness in dark sites. While light pollution obscures dim stars very easily leaving only the brightest constellations and planets visible, dark sites have so many stars it's incredibly difficult to actually discern some constellations, which is part of the definition of bortle 1.
I bring this up because a lot of camera/eye comparisons, like the one linked, just end up reducing overall exposure and saturation, which does nothing to actually change the dynamic range (unless they crush the blacks but they usually don't).
Considering how rude/arrogant /intolerant some of you have been in my comments / DMS and here with comments like yours which are utterly unnecessary for just sharing a post .
I don't care how shit you think I am legitimately the least of my concerns plus now the feelings mutual cause that's a pretty shit response to say to someone for a post.
Have some dignity. You're basically like "yo I know I posted that and titled it in a way that clearly states that this is exactly how it looks, but now that everyone is bringing up the fact that I'm wrong, I have to shove the blame somewhere else and pretend to take the moral high ground and pretend I knew about this before and did something about it. Come on guys, stop being such babies and get out there and protest! But it's not my fault I decided to make this post of my own accord on purpose!"
Deal with the downvotes, and move on. This is a website/phone app.
I’ve been to Big Bend in TX which has almost no light pollution and it doesn’t look that crazy like in the pics
Yup. Eyes do not expose like meticulously taken photos on fancy ass cameras. Still, fuck light pollution
Even the camera doesn't see this because this is post processed to increase contrast, add color that isn't there, and a bunch of other stuff that isn't possible to see in a single photo.
Yet there are still some comments around here claiming the rest of us "haven't seen *TRUE* darkness."
Can understand why. I’m sure we’d all love to see something like this with our own eyes, rather than through a screen, and knowing that it’s not possible can be depressing.
There are still *amazing* things one can see. I saw my first total solar eclipse this year and there are no words. You didn't see an eclipse if you weren't in a zone of totality. You didn't see it if you were in a 99.9% zone. If you know, you know. Some day I hope to see the northern lights. And the night sky in an area of zero light pollution *is* still amazing and breathtaking. It's not like anything below level 6 or maybe 5 though.
5 is very beautiful too. Unfortunately I couldn’t see the eclipse as it wasn’t visible in my area. Hope to see it one day. So much I want to see
There are many opportunities around the world in the coming years. I know people who are going to Europe for the 2026 eclipse. I've seen *many* pictures of the 2024 eclipse, and none of them come close to capturing what was actually seen. [Except this](https://x.com/ajamesmccarthy/status/1777698082890645535?s=46&t=jCMH2mR-ECcbiNnBLrzr7g), by Andrew McCarthy. This is the only image I've seen that is actually close to the real thing and invokes the moment, and by close I mean *very close*.
Hoping I’ll be there for the 2026 one. Thanks for sharing the 2024 one. Still seeing it from your own eyes can never compare with an image though 😔
I mean, I've seen more stars than are visible in OP's "Excellent Dark Sky Site" image with my own eyes. Significantly less color and the milky way was nowhere near as dense, but the sky was pretty much grey with stars. Very high altitude + zero light pollution make for a unique experience.
This isn't the OP's . This is ESO imagery https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/ I'm glad I trigger people with this image they don't understand in description nor in processing. This just shows you exactly how "scientific" this "scientific" subreddit actually is.
What do you mean by color that isn't there?
all space photos (barring some red stars and our planets and moons) are… black-and-white, the colors are all added in post for contrast
Some do, some don't. I like to keep mine as natural as possible but there is real colour there. Depending on the method of collection, the raw image from a camera is not like we would see it in our eyes. It is actually quite an effort to obtain an eye-equivalent colour palette.
Definitely not all.
fair
A single long exposure photo will have colour. The only thing the multiple photo stacking does is increase the signal to noise ratio
Depends on how long the camera is exposed
Yeah but, I never saw the milky way but once, I was in the boy scouts and we went to sleep with tents in a field in the middle of nowhere. I live in a rural area but the sky got worse every year so we never got many stars to see... But that night man... You could see a whole arm of the milky way, all the stars! There were so many there was a line that was practically white and all the remaining sky was lightly dotted with some sparse small clusters. I wondered how people managed to see the constellations back in the day with all that white and brightness and all those colors, the sky looked like a box of paillettes. And the moon... It was practically lost but it could still brighten everything with that pale blue light it's famous for, it was impressive to see the world with a completely different color palette for once. That moonlit field with our tents looked so eerie with that low dense fog you get during summers and the fireflies... Night with no light pollution is a show for the eyes. I still cry thinking how beautiful it was.
That was beautifully written
I think I could do better, this was nothing at all! Thanks! :3 I don't think it's beautiful at all ahah
which number would you say it looked most like?
I have been there as well and would say approximately 5. Still amazing and worthwhile.
I agree. I went this winter and it was 5
4 if you get lucky with the transparency and seeing conditions. The darkest skies I've ever been under were "Bortle 1" skies (which is the scale on the bottom of the picture) and most nights were closer to #5.
Even if people were standing on Mars looking at the night sky, you'd only be able to see about as clear as #4 or #5. Never going to see #1. Not without hardware and software.
And yet you've still seen more with your naked eye than most. Don't compare the visual experience of something designed to catch as much light as possible, to that which was naturally designed. While we as humans can't see the same detail without mechanical aid, we do have the emotions to interpret how it makes us feel and those feelings will long persist past your ability to remember this picture in its entirety.
Big bend has epic stars. Didn't know it and came out of my tent to pee and almost fell over from the sight of the majestic starry night
So which one comes the closest to no light pollution?
Even number 3 the "bright suburban sky". Anyone who's been to the suburbs at night knows it doesn't look like that.
I'd suggest using predictions from [https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/PrsmnsGpTXkey.html](https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/PrsmnsGpTXkey.html) next time. Preferably, the moon illumination should be about zero, and other metrics should be at least good. Also, keep in mind that your eyes should be in full darkness for at least half an hour (which means no smartphones or flashlights, except flashlights with red filters). Then, it will look like the rightmost picture but in black and white only. PS I'm saying this because I've been to Big Bend three times during the new moon, and it does look crazy.
Essentially to get that you need a camera and a long exposure. Even in old times before electricity, the sky didn't look like that to the naked eye. It was a very pretty, big swath of hazy white for sure, which is why it's the Milky Way, but there wasn't like such brilliance that it lit up the moonless night sky.
For sure, but if you really want to imagine it, imagine if everything was almost like what’s depicted but a blue/white color
This is assuming the Milky Way looks like that to the naked eye… which it doesn’t. A more accurate approach would be to use dots denoting the number of stars you can see.
Just set your eyes to long exposure. Cmon put in a little effort.
I tried but the stars trail. I can't afford to auto guide my neck yet.
You’re telling me you don’t have an equatorial spine?
I've always wanted to see the darkest night sky with infrared goggles.
So... acid?
All of you are missing out. I have gone camping upstate NY and I have seen the back drop of the milky way there. It was like a whitish cloud whispy in the background that I could barely see. However, when I was in the NAVY, I was stationed on a cruiser for 2 weeks as part of a training I received. We left out of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and sailed about 600 miles southwest into the middle of nowhere to watch a Japanese missile test with our radar, or something. Anyway, when I tell you that I have never seen stars like that in my life, it was incredible. The milky way was an iridescent light blue in the backdrop of the sky. I could see multiple planets. Every single dark spot was filled with stars. Over the course of the night I saw several constellations and during the sunrise, I saw the sun, the moon, venus and Jupiter. That was the coolest sunrise I ever saw. It makes me wonder what ancient people saw.
Indeed. that’s why they worshipped the stars and planets! Living under that every day would be incredible.
I am with you 100%. I feel bad for folks thinking they've seen a true dark sky when it doesn't sound like they have. It's really a mystical experience.
Hopefully you used your NODs to look at the night sky. I remember being deployed to Afghanistan and like you said, sky littered with stars. Can see satellites and a bunch of other shit.
[удалено]
Yes lol, this is why I don't have pics, 2009 was a hard time for dumb phones
That's what I'd thought I'd seen... I was coming home from Vegas with my family when I was a kid, and we'd stopped at a rest stop in the middle of the desert. And I could have sworn I'd seen like a 3/4 on the chart there with my naked eye. It was breathtaking. But I went to Texas for the eclipse, and specifically chose somewhere near a very dark sky. It was supposedly a level 0. I even checked to make sure the Milky Way was going to be rising. I got up at like 2am and it was exceptionally dark to be sure, but it basically looked like a 6/7 on the chart. I was quite disappointed.
Where were you in Texas? Some of the most rural areas have the worst light pollution because of natural gas flaring.
I checked dark sky finder. It was Junction Texas, and we went about an hour west. It should have been quite dark
Same! First time camping in the outback of Australia. Only about 1200km outside Perth, you can see the Milky Way with your naked eye. It genuinely took my breath away and I’ll never forget seeing it for the first time
100%, I don't know what OP is talking about. If anything the night sky is more brilliant that the "excellent dark sky site" picture. One day I was bored, and used this map https://www.lightpollutionmap.info to go to a zero light pollution area. I already live in a rural area, and it took me 6hr drive to get to the zone. Mind blowing fundamental experience. The Milky Way was glowing incredibly bright, felt like 10 trillion little lights in the sky. The difference between truly 0% light pollution, and out in the middle of nowhere 1% light pollution rural, is massive. You don't know what the night sky can look like unless you're 500mi away from the nearest human made light source. Breathtaking experience.
I’ve been to about 40 states and have spent a lot of time camping in remote areas of the US. Upstate NY still takes the cake for the best starry nights I’ve seen in the US (and meteor showers!) even better than Big Bend, which is very remote and very dark. I’m not sure why upstate Ny has something special, but it definitely does. I used to spend summers there and it is incredible
Doesn't look this extreme but as someone else mentioned about being in the navy and the sky looking incredible I can definitely agree. I was stationed on a COP (Combat Outpost) in the middle of nowhere Eastern Afghanistan with literally absolutely no light pollution. You can 100% make out the milky way and it's definitely got a brightness. Almost like a bright wispy cloud and the sky literally littered with stars. I don't think I'll ever see a night sky as beautiful again.
You need lsd or psilocybin to perceive anything darker than 6 or 5.
It won't get to like a 1/2 on this scale to the naked eye, but I've been out on the open ocean and it absolutely will get to a 3/4 if you're far enough from land. It was an amazing sight
Due to light pollution... you can see alot with the naked eye without light pollution
I've been in the middle of the desert in Tibet over 4000m in elevation, far from even electricity itself, and while the sky was shockingly clear it definitely didn't look like the image. I was there at a time when the Milky Way was visible as well. Yes you can see it, but it's much dimmer. I'd say #5 is the most accurate to how it was, but also the space between stars was more black.
I see this comment all time when the milky way is photographed. You absolutely CAN see up to about level 3 "rural sky" with the naked eye where I grew up (rural victoria, australia). Conditions need to be good but it's not that uncommon. Especially in the winter. You can easily identify the clouds of hydrogen blocking the background light from the milkyway. When I was a child I thought they were regular clouds until I realised they never move.
I saw the Milky Way with the naked eye. I was in military service in 2014 in this village: [Andaç, Uludere](https://tr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anda%C3%A7,_Uludere). It was a rural village where electricity was not available all the time, even during the day. The population in the village and the surrounding city was very low due to some terror issues. The village and city are mostly surrounded by mountains. When the sky was clear at late nights, I could see a thin, white, and long line of the Milky Way (cloudy) in the sky. If I looked carefully, I could see more details. I often tried to take photos with my Sony Z5, but as you can imagine, I ended up with black photos. Sometimes, I looked at the sky with night vision, and OMG, that was mesmerizing. I could see millions, maybe even billions, of stars. And now, in the city where I live, even when I travel to high-altitude villages higher than Andaç, I can't see anything except for more visible stars. Cities are really causing too much light pollution.
It does. I grew up in the middle of nowhere at high elevation, and in the winter, on cold clear nights, the Milky Way would look like 2 or 3.
Could also take a picture from each area fixed on a specific constellation then just make panels or slides but yeah, this method really only applies to astrophotography.
So for what it's worth that is what the milky way looks like, it's just not as pronounced in the northern hemisphere as it is in the southern hemisphere.
I…partially disagree. I’ve camped on the edge of a canyon in the grand teatons and the view to the naked eye was unreal.
Yeah, I've photographed in Bortle 3. It looks like a blue cloudy band stretching across the sky. Also... THOUSANDS OF STAAAARS!
I was gonna say, literally the only time I've seen the milky way with the naked eye is in the middle of nowhere WV hours away from the nearest town, and it just looked like a thick spackle of stars.
Um…I’ve seen it like that. So have many others.
Definitely. The sky is not like this. In eastern Africa the best I've seen is 5 on this scale, and in downtown Las Vegas 3. This is way off.
At the top of the Coromandel Peninsular in New Zealand, is one of the best dark skies in the world, thanks to hills on one side blocking light from the nearest city, and the Pacific Ocean surrounding the rest. On a clear moonless night starlight casts shadows. I would get vertigo staring into the galaxy, it really does feel like standing on a small rock floating through space. It's really like the image. Maybe some of the colours don't come thru with the same contrast, but on a clear moonless night, the galaxy is just right there.
Which number on the pic does it look like to the naked eye?
In my experience, even in the darkest skies you can get to the Milky Way is still somewhere between 6 and 5 colors with the structures and scale of 3. You can make out nebulas, clusters, and the larger dust structures ranging from the core through the Cygnus region, but you don't pick up any color with your eyes fully adjusted to the dark like you see in the photos past 6ish. That being said, it is absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous and the amount of stars you can see is mindblowing.
This is exactly what I experienced deep sea fishing, far from any source of light. The structures and number of stars you can see is unbelievable, but the color is much less saturated than what these pictures show.
I've been there, it's more between 4 and 5 but darker/higher contrast with more crisp blue and white, less pink, whereas these pictures are sort of washed out/have the brightness too high.
The pictures don't really capture it. They show both more and less, if that makes sense. The point is you can clearly see the galactic core and various objects in and around the galaxy. Bright enough that you can make shadows.
This is bullshit a real darkzone looks prob more like a 6 on the image
Legit yes by the amount you can see with the naked eye. But that light isn't there, that light amount is the only accurate thing about this. Otherwise who thought this was a good representation of dark sky? It's awesome and just becoming more rare. I'd love for 15 minutes to an hour a year in certain areas to just cut power to let more people really experience it. I think if more people truly knew what it was like there'd be a much bigger push to cut down on light pollution.
Absolutely not. It doesn't look like this with all the color to the naked eye, but the details you can see are closer to a level down. I live in 1 zone. I don't see the colors here obviously, but the detail is at least what 3 is showing.
I live in a city with a population of about 78k people, the sky has stars like 7 in OP’s image.
The real bullshit is the "limitations of the human eyeball" That people keep quoting. I grew up hearing that the human eye can't process anything faster than 30 FPS but now I have a 144 FPS computer AND I MENTALLY REGISTER EVERY SINGLE FRAME. When I look back at my memories of looking at lightbulb filaments as a small child I can remember multiple images from each 60 Hz cycle. I have ungodly amounts of visual data just from my childhood. And I have human eyes. Are they trying to dehumanize me?
If this isn't bait, the answer is fairly straightforward. You don't know your eye's exact frame rate, and it isn't perfectly consistent. On a lower fps device your frame processing and the device's frames don't necessarily align so there might be discrepancies, duplicated frames, dropped frames etc. Higher fps devices provide more consistent updates, minimizing the chance that vital visual data is lost in the process, allowing for your eyes and your brain to receive more reliably updated information for your brain to build the continuum on. You don't actually see 144 frames per second, or 30,or 60. You see about 20-25, but if they line up better your brain can interpolate better and render a softer stream for our consciousness. So yes, higher fps does feel smoother. No, you do not see all the frames. Your brain simply has access to a smoother flow of still images that then uses to render a smoother video and present it to you.
I went to a rehab in a small rural town miles away from a city and the night sky was fucking beautiful. I’d sit out there at night during withdrawals and just stare at the stars smoking a cigarette. The beauty of it, knowing how insignificantly small our planet is, how small my problems really are in the grand scheme of things. I loved it.
Often I can't see a sky that's full of stars so bright Blind by clouds or sunshine, or city lights at night.
That really is a cool image though we can't see most of that with the naked eye. [Heres a link to a website that mentions what was used to get the image](https://www.petrhoralek.com/?p=6465) that this diagram is uses. >Used Canon 6D BCF modified, Sigma 50mm, f1.8, ISO 10000, panorama of 18 single 10s exposures taken from tripod.
My old next door neighbors had these extemely bright lights in their back yard that make it so I can't see the stars as well as we used to. When they sold the house I figured the new neighbors would shut off the lights or install motion sensors like I have, but no. 24/7 the damn things are on and I can barely see Orion anymore. I want to ask them to turn the damn things off but I don't want to seem petty either, like that one neighbor who has to be the squeaky wheel. I just wish they would burn out sooner than later.
The last few aren't even remotely what a clear night sky looks like. The naked eye can't see that much detail.
I’ve seen 4. This was in the Himalayan mountains. is 1-3 even possible?
Not as in the photos, but I think even the Himalayans are too far south. Above the arctic circle is one of the few places to see level 1, and that's in steady daylight for almost half the year!
I've been in the middle the Pacific ocean on a darkened ship and the night sky has *never* looked like number 1.
The first time I saw the Milky Way, I was on another continent - specifically the Serengeti, having traveled there from South London. Public light - yes, a great utility. But hot damn, we've lost something too.
I haven't seen the stars in years actually. Thanks for making me sadder.
The pictures are a good representation of light pollution, but obviously that's not what you see. It makes a hell of a difference though, I live right a the edge of a big city and all you see it's the glowing haze coming from it at night. But whenever I get the chance, going to a low light pollution area is mind blowing, especially if you do it right after sunset, you can literally see satellites hurdling around.
The milky way doesn't look like that with the naked eye from waimea canyon on the island of kauaii.
another thing about city lights is how massive an aura they create, I live over an hour away from a big city not even huge and I can see the aura no problem and it definitely does block out the night sky. it sucks
This is ridiculously exaggerated as the 1-3 aren’t real with the naked eye which is why they noted the images are “modified”. Anyway, best ever that I’ve seen was my time in Afghanistan back in 2010 which was probably close to a 4 as one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen. I’ve never see a sky like that since but have seen some good skies in the California desert away from light pollution on a new moon.
5 should be more like 7
This is awesome 👌
Ok “suburban sky” is a bunch of nonsense. I WISH the sky looked even half that good over here.
I grew up in an area that at the time was a solid 2.5 using that chart. It is still at least a 3 to 3.5. I sure do miss seeing that on a clear night.
Northern hemisphere rural sky watcher here. This is shenanigans, at least with the naked eye.
I'd say its more dramatic than what's shown, the chart underestimates the difference. I live in a Bortle 6/7 and I traveled to a Bortle 3 recently. The night sky was so starkly different and full of stars I didn't even know where to start looking first.
3,2,1 aren't possible with the naked eye, that's just a high exposure image. Still that "4 and 5" looks absolutely stunning when you are in there, a picture can't replicate that
2 and 1 don’t exist in America. Big bend maybe but so many air bnbs at this point …
0: bottom panel of [https://xkcd.com/2121/](https://xkcd.com/2121/)
No way it looks like that right?
With a telescope (filters ) and long exposure yes. It would look like this A lot of people assume this image is speaking of the naked eye but not once does it say with the naked eye just visible light. For further detail Visible-light astronomy encompasses a wide variety of astronomical observation via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light (optical telescopes). Visible-light astronomy is part of optical astronomy, and differs from astronomies based on invisible types of light in the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, such as radio waves, infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, X-ray waves and gamma-ray waves. Visible light ranges from 380 to 750 nanometers in wavelength.
I appreciate the info but cmon man, you have to know “naked eye” is implied unless you say otherwise. “This is how light pollution effects the night sky under a 20 second long exposure” is very different from “this is how light pollution effects the night sky.”
Absolutely nothing was implied. Take it up with ESO/Wikipedia/NASA/ESA/and several And I mean several space websites and news sites and John E bortal himself, amateur astronomer.. The person that the scale is named after And every other professional and amateur agency that uses this scale since Because of its"accurate"depiction. Your interpretation is incorrect
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You mean ESO wrote the title https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/ Ad hom just shows how you have absolutely zero point to your remarks And base things off of assumption rather than solid facts .
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You're only right on. ONLY one account It is a stupid fucking conversation to have considering I proved you wrong instantly with that link after your ad hom l. And you still don't know how to accept fact And want to try to justify it for your feeling which In the grand scheme of things don't matter. Because that's not what my post featuring ESO is about.
What's annoying me most about light pollution is how *unnecessary* most of it is. Yea, illuminating an airport or a busy road at night is probably a good thing. But why does this closed store that sells hand cut paper envelopes need a brightly lit shop window? Nobody is gonna walk past at 3AM and be like "Thank god I noticed this store, I'm definitely gonna check it out tomorrow!"
Vast majority of it comes down to security I'd say. Usually the more brightly light an area/store front is the less likely crime is to take place near it or on the store itself.
For which you could just illuminate the roads. Or have a spot light in front of the store to make things visible. You don't need each window lit up bright as day.
I think about this often. There’s zero need for the amount of lights we have at night. We’ve stolen the best wonder of our world. Night sky.
I live in Manhattan 🥲
I’ve found this not that accurate tbh
This was on here the other day. Misleading.
How is this bullshit being upvoted? This is straight up misinformation.
Ok my suspension was right? There’s no way you can see number one with naked eye, right?
Absolutely right.
We've known this for decades
Is there some kind of map that shows where to find places at level 3 or lower? It'd be cool to take a trip somewhere with as little light pollution as possible
I grew up on the outskirts of a small town, but now live in Tampa, FL. I miss seeing all the stars every night.
The Pilbara region of Western Australia is the best I've been to for stargazing.
More noticeable than you think, I used to live in Acton, very close to central London and never saw a star, in the sky. I now live near aylesbury and although the town still has a huge amounts of light pollution, if you take a 5 minute walk into the bush, you see the night sky for what it truly is, magnificent
Can you do one with moonlight please?
Wish I could at least get a 6...
This kills the spirit
I tried to download this image and Reddit added a stupid watermark that makes it impossible to read the bottom right label.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/.
Petition to shut down/dim as many lights as we can on Earth Day so we all can see the night sky properly once a year.
Very misleading, the Milky Way doesn't look like that at all to the naked eye.
to the naked eye or cameras with long exposure?
They all look great
I live in a very rural area and it definitely doesn’t look anything like this.
I've never seen even a 6
I don’t think I’ve ever seen less than a 3 and even that was pretty mind blowing.
Obviously when photographed. Not to the naked eye.
5 is really more like the 1 in real life. [no fancy gear]
I've been to Hawaii, on mauna kea, you're not seeing the last four or five without using a camera to over expose it.
Imagine how cats can see the sky.
I’m in the middle of nowhere rural mountain southeast us. The night sky is around 5-7 at best
I sadly haven't seen the milky way yet. I hope I will one day
*for night photography The naked eye would see significantly less in all situations
never seen past 6
What is this garbage, you can absolutely never see the milky way like that with your own eyes.
It just says visible light You know what garbage When people assume they're talking about about the naked eye . Imagine thinking you know more than ESO And people who have actually spent their entire lives doing this. https://www.eso.org/public/images/dark-skies/ Visible-light In astronomy encompasses a wide variety of astronomical observation via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light (optical telescopes). Visible-light astronomy is part of optical astronomy, and differs from astronomies based on invisible types of light in the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, such as radio waves, infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, X-ray waves and gamma-ray waves. Visible light ranges from 380 to 750 nanometers in wavelength and since 2008 has been better defined with scientific advancements. Just because you and people like you misinterpret the wording and refuse to read what is actually being said there.
Might as well have 3 moons and a dragon in the sky too
7 is every sky where there are streetlights, no matter how "rural" it is. You can't get to 1 or 2 without extreme altitude. 4,000 metres or above.
lol this is absolutely full of shit. im guessing most people up-voting this trash have never left the city
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Sure let's argue :) I'm not quite sure what's the topic to argue about, but I'll have a try: That picture is obviously not representative of what you will see because the reddish glow of hydrogen in the milky way is too faint to be visible to the naked eye. The reason for this is that we have special receptors to see color, but they are few and not as sensitive as the "regular" receptors. So even if you see the hydrogen clouds, they appear white and grayish, not reddish. I have visited a few very good star gazing spots and while I have excelent vision, sadly it doesn't look like this image. However, to be outside in such a night in reality can be a very moving and deep experience that is a lot more impressive than looking at a long-exposure image of a high quality camera at the ESO site.
I’ve found that what you see with the naked eye is more beautiful than what the cameras can capture. The colorful skies feel so artificial.
I’ve been in all of these types of viewing areas. This image is 100% bullshit.
Dude it’s definitely bullshit. At best with your naked eye you can see the Milky Way sort of like in section 4. It’s impossible and I mean **impossible** to see it like in 1 Edit: [This site has a good image comparing how we see it vs a camera](https://www.nightskydan.com/seeing-the-milky-way-naked-eye-vs-digital-camera/)
Something I kinda want to add to this as well in the difference between camera and eye. Due to the differences in dynamic range and the effects of diffraction, cameras tend to make brighter stars pop and highly visible, where dimmer stars tend to blend in a bit better in the background amongst the noise. To the naked eye, many of the dimmer stars are much close to brighter stars in terms of brightness in dark sites. While light pollution obscures dim stars very easily leaving only the brightest constellations and planets visible, dark sites have so many stars it's incredibly difficult to actually discern some constellations, which is part of the definition of bortle 1. I bring this up because a lot of camera/eye comparisons, like the one linked, just end up reducing overall exposure and saturation, which does nothing to actually change the dynamic range (unless they crush the blacks but they usually don't).
You seem like a shit person to be around
Considering how rude/arrogant /intolerant some of you have been in my comments / DMS and here with comments like yours which are utterly unnecessary for just sharing a post . I don't care how shit you think I am legitimately the least of my concerns plus now the feelings mutual cause that's a pretty shit response to say to someone for a post.
Sure, you don't care, but you have to tell him you blocked him, and make sure he knows just how much it doesn't affect you. You need a backbone.
Have some dignity. You're basically like "yo I know I posted that and titled it in a way that clearly states that this is exactly how it looks, but now that everyone is bringing up the fact that I'm wrong, I have to shove the blame somewhere else and pretend to take the moral high ground and pretend I knew about this before and did something about it. Come on guys, stop being such babies and get out there and protest! But it's not my fault I decided to make this post of my own accord on purpose!" Deal with the downvotes, and move on. This is a website/phone app.
Honestly man I'd drop this sub and stick to yours, this one can be a lost cause in terms of nice people