Starry Nights

I love stargazing. How about you?  I love it enough, that it is now 1 of the 180 criteria in the New Updated Selection Tool I wrote about yesterday. No one else has these sorts of metrics to help you feel inspired and socially connected.

I’ve noticed driving from the DC area to friends in WV, the stargazing is much much better. And this week I learned that is a difference of 3 on the Bortle scale. The Bortle Scale is a measure of light pollution that blocks the night sky. 1 is excellent, 9 is worst inner city sky. At or above 5, you usually cannot see the Milky Way. Scientists estimate that around 80 percent of North Americans can’t see the Milky Way. Light pollution impacts our views but also health and the entire ecosystem. (Perhaps you’ve seen the calls to turn off lights while birds are migrating in fall?)

None of the 382 places in the Selection Tool have excellent stargazing because the census locations are in areas where there is a population cluster and those tend to have light pollution that degrades stargazing. Most states have some areas of good to excellent rural stargazing somewhere in the state. And now that data is in the Selection Tool when you want to compare where to move in the US.

Best wishes,

Rose