Category: Dispatches
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Finding Dark Skies Near Houston: A Three-Stop Journey to the Stars
Key takeaways New to the numbers? The Bortle scale runs from 1, the darkest skies left on Earth, to 9, an inner city where the constellations disappear. Sky brightness is measured in mag/arcsec², where a higher number means a darker sky. A Bortle 5 is a suburban sky, dark enough that the Milky Way shows overhead on a good…
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Mauna Kea Stargazing: Dark Sky Dispatch
Most places on this list will reward you with spectacular skies. A handful will also give you a landscape that makes you question reality a little. Mauna Kea does both. You’re standing at the summit of the tallest mountain on Earth, depending on how you measure it — a volcano rising from the middle of…
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Rapa Nui National Park (Easter Island): Dark Sky Dispatch
There are dark sky destinations, and then there are Easter Island dark sky destinations. Most of my dispatch spots will give you incredible skies. A handful will also give you a landscape that makes you feel like you’ve stepped out of time. Easter Island does both, and it does them at a level that is…
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Bryce Canyon National Park: Dark Sky Dispatch
Bryce Canyon National Park is one of those places that earns its reputation in the daytime and then somehow exceeds it at night. Sitting at over 8,000 feet in southern Utah, it’s home to one of the most accessible and rewarding dark sky experiences in the country — the kind of place where you can…