"…oh my God! -- it's full of stars."
The 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey contains numerous memorable lines. “Open the pod bay doors, Hal” is usually the first that comes to mind.
But my favorite line is by astronaut David Bowman. Just before traveling through the star gate created by the monolith orbiting Jupiter and vanishing, he tells Mission Control: "The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it's full of stars!"
Astronaut David Bowman before vanishing into the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey
Or your typical first timer witnessing a truly dark sky.
Chicago Skies
In Chicago’s night sky, you can only see a paltry 35 stars. Just 35. In a non-light polluted night sky, approximately 4,500 stars are visible. It’s no wonder that folks who venture out of the city and experience a true night sky for the first time are often overheard saying “My God, it’s full of stars.”
If you’ve never experienced the breathtaking beauty of a truly dark sky, head to https://www.darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness. The map will lay out our country’s remaining dark sky areas. If you’ve never experienced a sky with thousands of stars and the Milky Way, you’re missing out on one of the greatest sights in the world.
The Shot
I have a “thing” for landscape astrophotography. It’s a combination of a night sky and a landscape. Bringing heaven and earth together is another way to describe landscape astrophotography.
Last year I was fortunate to enjoy several evenings of clear dark skies near Grand Marais, Minnesota. It’s quite dark outside of town with a multitude of water features to tie the land to the sky.
The waters of Crescent Lake were calm, and the brighter stars were reflecting beautifully in the lake. Both the lake and the sky seemed “full of stars.”
The green glow in the background wasn’t the Aurora Borealis, it was airglow.
About 60 miles above the earth, air molecules and atoms release energy absorbed from incoming solar radiation. This results in a faint green and sometimes red luminescence of Earth’s upper atmosphere. It’s so faint that only a camera exposing for many seconds can capture the glow.
Even after many beautiful nights under dark skies, I still felt goosebumps as I stared at a sky filled with stars.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus