I haven't seen the Milky Way or the Big Dipper recently, because I live in Dallas and the sky is not dark enough most nights. I have, however, seen them during some of my tours outside Dallas.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
I've been out in the ocean flat on my back laying on the deck of a fully blacked out US Navy ship. In the first few moments, the sky was normal. But as the seconds ticked by, stars continued to appear until it was literally a sea of stars I was seeing.

Yes! In the middle of the ocean, you can see a LOT of the sky!

Have to plug in another sighting of the Milky Way. Houston to San Juan, PR once we got east of Florida. Gazillion stars out tonight…

A co-worker wrote "Deep-Sky Name Index" for finding the heavenly bodies in the sky.

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Sk...?ref_=ast_author_mpb

At home there’s too much light pollution but I frequently travel to the northern border and the night sky is amazing!

No light pollution at my house and I've also seen great skies from the middle of the Atlantic.

Sadly, with all the light pollution around my environs today…it’s also been a while since I’ve seen the constellation “Cassiopeia” (which some have wrongly called The Little Dipper )…growing up EVERYBODY knew who she was and where to find her

I was lucky enough to catch it at Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands last week. That will probably the last time for me for a while.

From our house, we can see the big dipper and most of the other major constellations, but the milky way is pretty washed out. We like to vacation to remote places, though, and part of that appeal is to be able to sit out at night and enjoy the beauty of the night sky.

One of the best places we've been for that was Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah. It's wide open desert so there's a huge horizon, and the park offices aren't even connected to the grid...all of their power comes from a local solar plant, so at night there is zero light pollution. One night that we were there they put on a ranger program with a telescope and we got to see the ISS, a bunch of planets, galaxies, and nebulae. The milky way was visible in it's full glory. Absolutely awesome.

One thing I've never seen is the northern lights. They were visible one time here in Indiana..just barely. I was at work so I missed it, but my wife took my oldest two out on the roof and watched them. Last week when we were in Alaska I woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night to try and catch them during the couple of hours of darkness, but conditions were never right. Some day I'm going to go up there in the winter and see them.

I lived near the tip of the lower Michigan peninsula for 25 years, very dark skies made for awesome night skies.

quote:

Originally posted by M-11:
The middle of Afghanistan is a good place, too.

I’m sorry, but the middle of Afghanistan is never a “good place,” visible Milky Way notwithstanding.

40,000 ft with no moon, just turn the cockpit lighting very low and take it all in.1,000's of night hour's and
never saw a "UFO",and I was looking. Oh well.

quote:

Originally posted by 104RFAST:
40,000 ft with no moon, just turn the cockpit lighting very low and take it all in.1,000's of night hour's and
never saw a "UFO",and I was looking. Oh well.

Don’t want to derail, but all of my life, I’ve been interested in what goes on in the sky - the weather/weather phenomenon, amateur astronomy, and aircraft. I’m ALWAYS noticing what’s in the sky, and for my almost 60 years, I’ve never seen anything that wasn’t conventionally explainable.

I’ve never seen ‘craft’ in the sky ever move erratically or shoot off or slow down unconventionally. I was in the USMC, working with aircraft, and even the Harriers never did anything but fly according to their engineering.

The odds I haven’t seen anything not readily or conventionally explained have to be astronomical (pun intended) with all of the multitudes of claimed sightings of the unusual(miraculous or other-worldly).

I’ve traveled to many US states, to the UK a couple of times, taken cruises to destinations outside of the US, as well as traveling to Japan, Korea,the Philippines, and Cuba while in the USMC. Still…nada.

Just saw it last night, along with the Big Dipper and some shooting stars. Glorious night for starwatching where I am right now.

We have very little light in rural East Virginia, so the constellations are often visible.

Last night between midnight and 4 AM was the reputed height of the Perseids meteor shower. The wife got up a couple of times and said it was a pretty good show. I just stayed in bed. It doesn't have a beat and I can't dance to it.

They're beautiful, aren't they? The stars. I never really look at them anymore, but they actually are quite... beautiful.