Skygazing in complete darkness satellites and planet

Are you feeling wistful for star-streaked views of the night sky? Hoping to get the most out of a meteor shower? Or perhaps you live in a large city and you’ve never even seen the Milky Way?

If you’re hoping to do some skywatching, but you’re not quite sure how to find a great spot, we have you covered. Here are some key things to know about how to find the best places for stargazing.

To begin with, you need dark skies away from city lights to see more stars. This is especially true if you want to be able to see the Milky Way. There are many more faint stars in the sky than bright ones, and only the brightest stars and planets are brilliant enough to see in bright, urban skies.

The reason for this is light pollution – stray light from urban areas scattered into the night sky. Light pollution is stray light from parking lots, sport complexes, street lights, and other human activity. It’s a combined effect of scattered light from these things that manifests as a glow in the night sky. The larger and more developed a city is, the more light pollution it tends to produce

For observing faint stars and meteors, the darker the sky, the better. The amount of skyglow from light pollution diminishes as you venture farther outward from a population center. So heading outward from town, at least 20 to 30 miles from the city limits, is key.

If you live near mountains, they can help to block light. Putting a ridge of mountains between you and the city can make a big difference. An alternative is get to the other side of a large wilderness area or body of water. Depending on how far outside of town you venture, you’ll likely still see a glow on the horizon in the direction of the city.

There’s a numeric scale, called the Bortle scale, to help would-be stargazers know how bright the sky is likely to be above a given location. It has nine levels, from class 1, which is the darkest sky you can find on Earth, to class 9, which is the most light-polluted city sky. You’ll only see the brightest stars and planets amid the glow of a Bortle-class-9 sky. For most of us, getting to a Bortle-class 3 or 4 location is dark enough for a great evening of stargazing. To get to darker sites generally requires long drives to remote spots, but it can be worth it! There are a variety of websites and apps that provide maps of light pollution and Bortle ratings.

Don’t ignore the Moon. Take a look at what the current Moon phase is, and note when it rises and sets at your observing location. (There are lots of websites and apps that provide this info.)

For those hoping to observe meteor showers or the Milky Way, a bright Moon can be the thing that causes you to stay home on a given night. When it’s close to full – for the week or so before and after the full moon phase – the Moon is quite bright, and creates a lot of skyglow. This has a similar effect to that of human-created light pollution, as it makes faint stars and other faint objects in the sky harder to see.

The best time to observe the stars, with regard to the Moon’s brightness, is the two weeks before and after the new moon phase. On these evenings the Moon is either absent from the sky all night, or sets within a couple of hours after sunset, or doesn’t rise until the pre-dawn hours.