Some trivia, for which I am noted, did you know that there is an actual measurement for how dark the sky is at night? It is called the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale.
Up here I have always been amazed at how many stars/objects can be seen at night due to the lack of city glow and altitude (less atmosphere to penetrate). I was reading an article in Outside about this subject and was amazed to realize that we probably aren't even in the top couple of rungs of the BDSS.
As I understand it, Arches National Park has been identified as the only "dark sky" park in the country. It is only a 2 - Typical truly dark site, on the Bortle Scale.
That makes me think that this area is probably a 3 - Rural sky. Except of course during a Winter full Moon when we may need to put on sunscreen it can be so bright.
Another item on night time observations, a couple of years ago there was a post about a fireball spotted one night. At the time, as it was going behind West Antelope to the north I mentioned bracing for the impact shockwave, only to hear and fell nothing. I later found out that it went in to Canada and probably was about the size of a golf ball.
No comments:
Post a Comment