Pre-civilization Milky Way?

[Buckaroo]

In the dark days before civilization, when skies were truly dark. Can anyone imagine the wonder of the Milky Way stretching out across the sky?

Has anyone tried to recreate that majesty in a photograph, including photoshopped examples?

I live in a far southern suburb of Chicago. The skies to the north are hopelessly bathed in orange city glow. Cities down here are smaller, but even so the glow from them is also visible on the horizon.

Can anyone recreate the type of scene one might have marveled at as 'Lucy' and her relatives saw it as they stood on the plains of the African savanna? Or the southern suburbs of Chicago? heh.

[BMAONE23]

There are numerous places on earth where it is still possible to see the sky unpolluted by lights.
This site http://darksitefinder.com/maps.html displays maps showing dark sky locations. Lucy would still find no viewing problems in deepest darkest. You could also travel to N Korea and have dark skies over most of the country. Also 70% of the sky is still dark on the oceans. Still many options to avoid light pollution and wonder at the vastness

[Chris Peterson]

There are numerous places on earth where it is still possible to see the sky unpolluted by lights.
This site http://darksitefinder.com/maps.html displays maps showing dark sky locations. Lucy would still find no viewing problems in deepest darkest. You could also travel to N Korea and have dark skies over most of the country. Also 70% of the sky is still dark on the oceans. Still many options to avoid light pollution and wonder at the vastness

Indeed, you don't need to get all that far from most cities to get very close to the same skies seen by pretechnological humans.

[rstevenson]

Sometimes you don't have to go very far at all to dramatically improve your viewing. I live on the east side of the metro Halifax area in Nova Scotia. Seeing here is dreadful, with moisture and city dust and pollution brought overhead by the prevailing winds. I regularly see friends who live only about 5 km away on the west side of the city. They're still well within city limits, but their sky is much, much clearer than mine. Compared to a truly dark site, it may not be so good, but compared to my side of town, it's amazing!

Rob

[Chris Peterson]

Sometimes you don't have to go very far at all to dramatically improve your viewing. I live on the east side of the metro Halifax area in Nova Scotia. Seeing here is dreadful, with moisture and city dust and pollution brought overhead by the prevailing winds. I regularly see friends who live only about 5 km away on the west side of the city. They're still well within city limits, but their sky is much, much clearer than mine. Compared to a truly dark site, it may not be so good, but compared to my side of town, it's amazing!

People often fail to appreciate just how much light pollution is local. There are many stories of people living in megacities like New York which experience small power failures, extending to just a few blocks. That's enough to improve the limiting magnitude for those in the center of the darkened blocks by 2-3 and make the Milky Way stand out clearly. In the middle of hundreds of square miles of lights. Or where I am, with pristine skies, just a couple of bright yard lights, without shielding but not directly visible, can make the sky nearly as bad as living in a city. Most of the light that is ruining your sky is coming from very close.

[rstevenson]

... Most of the light that is ruining your sky is coming from very close.

I should have also mentioned that I live two blocks away from the largest mall in eastern Canada! Their parking lot lights only shine down, but of course there is considerable reflection even from asphalt (consider the asphalty Moon.)

Rob

[geckzilla]

I've tried spotting the Milky Way from the backyard here but there are still a few lights. Some trees block them a little but it's not quite enough. I suppose under ideal conditions if there wasn't much at all in the air around me for the light to get caught on and the MW happened to be straight above, I could see it. I've heard of some people doing observations from the roof of their tall buildings in Manhattan. I wonder if the height offers much of an advantage. I'm sure it would if the lights weren't there. Lots of residential buildings easily climb above low lying fog layers.

[THX1138]

I live just outside of Los Angeles..............Enough said I imagine
Nonetheless a four hour drive out to someplace like blyth Az. and the heavens are beautiful, sorta like chocolate chip ice cream in reverse.
I wonder if the nighttime sky was like that across the entire lower 48 in say the 1920s and back

[kellogg]

I live on a farm in rural West Virginia.

(My day job is as an engineer.)

Our skies are pretty free of light pollution.
Big Bend National Park in South Texas is also excellent for a view of the night sky.

Scott Kellogg

[BDanielMayfield]

I live just outside of Los Angeles..............Enough said I imagine
Nonetheless a four hour drive out to someplace like blyth Az. and the heavens are beautiful, sorta like chocolate chip ice cream in reverse.
I wonder if the nighttime sky was like that across the entire lower 48 in say the 1920s and back

We might have [to] go further back in time than the 1920's to have [had] Blyth-like nighttime darkness all across the US. Remember, it's not just light pollution that mucks up our skies. Ordinary air pollution and wind blown dust do so as well.

I live on a farm in rural West Virginia. Our skies are pretty free of light pollution.
Big Bend National Park in South Texas is also excellent for a view of the night sky.

Scott Kellogg

Hi Scott. BBNP is one of our favorite vacation spots. I highly recommend it unless you just can't stand the desert or extreme isolation. But even there, air quality is becoming a serious issue. See http://www.nps.gov/bibe/learn/nature/airquality.htm

Bruce

[BDanielMayfield]

... someplace like blyth Az.

Arizona old timers complain about their state becoming Californicated (over-run with ex-Californians). Wile-e-coyote here has Arizonaized Blythe California.

[brucesdad13]

It must have been absolutely stunning! )

In the dark days before civilization, when skies were truly dark. Can anyone imagine the wonder of the Milky Way stretching out across the sky?

Has anyone tried to recreate that majesty in a photograph, including photoshopped examples?

I live in a far southern suburb of Chicago. The skies to the north are hopelessly bathed in orange city glow. Cities down here are smaller, but even so the glow from them is also visible on the horizon.

Can anyone recreate the type of scene one might have marveled at as 'Lucy' and her relatives saw it as they stood on the plains of the African savanna? Or the southern suburbs of Chicago? heh.