As Far As The Eye Can See

Picture of Outer Space from Planet Earth


Last night my wife and I, impressionable folks that we are, went looking for the Milky Way. We had recently enjoyed an article in The New Yorker⎯or as I call it, my weekly stock of opinions—about the dark skies in certain areas of the country where it is still possible to see the Milky Way. Apparently, when Galileo* was alive the skies were much darker than they are today. This seems obvious when you think about the amount of light thrown upwards by hotels and auto dealerships, but I grew up in a rural area so it came as a surprise to me that the Milky Way should be visible to the naked eye at all. As children, my brother and I spent countless nights sleeping out in the yard. We would pitch a tent fifty meters from the house and stay up late talking. We would also spend a fair amount of time laying on our backs looking at the sky. We would see shooting stars, and once we saw what we have agreed was a UFO, but we never saw the clusters of stars and nebula that comprise our galaxy.

In a jealous rage, my wife and I decided to head east into the Sandias to find a spot where we could pull over and watch the secret celestial performance already underway. We wouldn't even research our destination. There was no need, we thought. Our end point would reveal itself to us. Like explorers seeing a new land for the first time, it would be obvious when we had arrived. We would drive bravely and blindly onward until something like Saturn appeared. And so as we set off, unrestrained by maps and time tables, our desires the only things guiding us, I felt a rush of excitement that accompanies the knowledge that you cannot be stopped.

A short distance into the drive, my euphoria waning slightly, I began to see the vague outlines of disappointment taking shape. What if we didn't see any stars tonight? What if we are going the wrong direction? Was my wife getting bored? Because neither of us would hazard a guess as to our travel time for fear of seeming conservative, and thereby undermining the whole event, it was impossible for us to know how the other was feeling.

As our car wore on, the landscape enveloping the highway disappeared into blackness and our conversation evaporated into silence. It is said that in the absence of some of our senses, the others will take up the slack.** I have always known this to be true as I can almost feel what another is thinking when they stop speaking and retreat into their thoughts. In this case, it was the restlessness that comes with not knowing where you're going. Not that I could blame her. I don't know what she had in mind, but I was expecting some pretty spectacular results
within the twenty or thirty-minute range. Any longer than that and a person starts to feel a little foolish and unprepared.

The further we drove, the more we realized that many things were working against us this night, not the least of which was the general cloudiness. It was clear in spots, but it is difficult to gauge the optimal conditions when you don't really know what you're looking for. The moon was no help either. Nearly full and frighteningly pale, the glow from its surface cast outwards a glare into the blackness so that it was uncomfortable to look at. We also learned that just because you are on a country road does not mean that you will find a perfect, unlit field along a deserted strip of forgotten highway. We kept pulling off, trying to scout an area where we could get out and sit, but the roads we would choose would turn out to be peoples’ driveways. At one point, we thought we had found a good spot—a little gravel cul-de-sac between two distant houses—only to find that when we exited the car there were several dogs barking at us.

After an hour or more we decided to pack it in, unfulfilled in our quest and humbled by our realization that what we were after was something special and would not be so easy to obtain. I was very naive to imagine that I should see it so effortlessly. I felt greedy and undeserving. I felt the shame that I always wish upon tourists who spend their vacations peering through their video cameras, trapping it all so that they have proof of the places they've gone as though the world is nothing more than a souvenir shop.

A truly dark sky, like those our ancestors saw before electricity and widespread pollution, is not something that one can just go find. It is akin to an endangered species. Once ubiquitous, they have been driven very far from our habitats, for, like so many things, it has not survived alongside us.


* Perhaps the only astronomer people can name.

** For example, one's nose will sharpen to compensate for a lack of touch, which comes in handy if you have been tied up but you want to know what's for dinner.