> Very cool - don't see a lot of stars here due to all the urban light, but > have seen that carpet before. Must've been pretty damned amazing > to stand in the middle of the desert, with that above you.
That's why I posted the photo. Most people these days have no idea. This photo is the closest I have found to conveying what it was like to stand in the middle of the Sahara on a moonless night. In that era, in which global pollution had not become an issue, and in which light pollution (I lived 60 miles from the nearest light- emitting city, Marrakech) had not even been imagined. Your term "carpet" is apt. I remember once taking a blanket with me out into the desert behind my house, away even from the lights of the Air Force base, and lying on it there just staring up. I tried to figure out how big the biggest "black spot" in the sky was, meaning the biggest area that did not contain any visible stars. All that it took to cover that black spot was to hold my arm out at full length, and use the fingernail of my little finger. I have since gazed at the nighttime sky from the tops of the Rockies, or from on top of Haleakala, in Maui. And from deserts and remote areas in the US, Canada, and Europe. In the last twenty years, I have never seen even a third as many stars. That's why it's heartening to see this photo from South Australia. Even if the photographer had to use a long exposure to capture this, this many visible stars were there to be captured. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Obviously, it still does in Lake Eyre, in remote South Australia. The bright spot above the subject's hand is Venus. [https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/1236171_51757334832536\ 2_1189026149_n.jpg]