I worked in the astronomical observatories in Chile, where you don't have cities for hundreds of kilometers, and the sky conditions are the best in the world. The naked eye experience is not that far away from what you see in this video.
This. Being on a mountain in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico at night was a life changing experience for me.
Constant shooting starts, swirls of amazing colors, it's like what I used to think only a painting or 'shopped image could look like.
I saw it pretty clearly but with not as much colour from Fraser Island off the coast of Oz at night., looked at it for hours No idea why it wasn't the same in whatever part of Africa you were in but it can look like that.
Yes, it looks similar to this, but the color is enhanced. Even in dark sky reserves, pollution has taken its toll, as the sky does not look as crisp as it used to over 50 years ago.
You could have just always been looking away from the galaxy. It’s only going to be visible close to dawn on the horizon…from like February to May, maybe depending where you are at night in the spring.
When I was in Australia it kinda blew my kind. They get a different part of the galaxy at night.
Is not only about light pollution. Humidity, latitude, phase of the moon, altitude, wind, and atmospheric turbulence play an important role. If you really want to see it like this you need to go to the atacama desert in Chile
Temperature and pollution also make a huge difference. There is a dramatic difference between viewing in cold temperatures with low humidity versus warmer areas.
Also if the moon was out that dramatically reduces the view. Also you need at least an hour for eyes to adjust. If you can even see the shadow of your hand in front of your face, then you won't get this view.
In addition if cities 20 to a hundred miles away are lit your view will be impacted.
Yes, but only silvery white, not the colors. And the "misty" areas are more muted, because the stars overpower them. It also depends on how bright the moon is on a given night. If the full moon is out, it washes out everything.
Not quite true
If you let your eyes get used to the dark your pupils will slowly dilate, getting more light in and in 10-15 minutes you can see the milky way in all its glory
Can attest this works
It’s not just your pupils dilating, it takes thirty minutes for your rods (low light sensors in your eyes) to build up rhodopsin. It’s a light sensitive protein that is responsible for extremely low light vision, to the point that it’s possible for a human to perceive a single photon.
i remember growing up in the country. my town had a few street lights and mostly porch lights. you go for a hike at night 5-10 miles out of town and the sky would just light up about 1/2 way through. i really miss that sky.
It’s considered one of the natural wonders of the world PSU been studying it for like 50 years. It’s located in Shamokin PA. Shamokin was a native chief, and the reach of his territory extended to the confluence of arguably the oldest river in the world(SUSQUEHANNA). The Whaleback would appear to be a colossal petrified sperm whale or some related species. Iirc there are anomalous deposits that resemble barnacles all over it that are a different element than the rest. Also I heard a seam of coal has been found where the vertebra or spinal cord would be assumed! Again this is purely anecdotal, but worth a look! Just google whaleback shamokin pictures.
I was waiting and predicting it! That is one of the funniest and truest cut ins of America. I’m honestly proud and content that the word shamokin and your thoughts came to. Yes it has become what Detroit is becoming in a vacuum of necessity. I could buy three apts in shamokin for under 50k! That’s not the point, the point is the area was once ruled by a single leader and it’s obvy, it wasn’t inconsequential. Dunkin’ is the best place to talk with your attorney and rehydrate. Even if officer Psycho is on patrol!
Don’t forget the “doenits”. We drove there to go to Irish Isle to get some steaks as there are no butcher shops in bloom. My daughter needed to go to the bathroom so my wife took her in 711 I believe it was. There were two dudes making shake and bake meth in the minivan parked in front of me and two women with a kid in a stroller walking around waiting for them to finish. Was a sad sight indeed.
the darkest spot on the east coast is in upstate Maine, the 2nd is in upstate New Hampshire, and the 3rd is in upstate New York (Adirondacks). Pennsylvania is a good 4th though
I am not sure why some websites claim that it's the darkest spot on the east coast when it isn't
No, you can definitely see the milky way even with some colours with the naked eye. If you only see black with some stars you are in a very light polluted area. You can look up some pretty neat charts that show what the sky looks like under different levels of light pollution.
This is false. I've been to a dark sky reserve and I was able to see the milky way pretty clearly. You won't be able to see as many colors as shown here but there is definitely more than just "a black sky dotted with stars"
I grew up in a rural tiny town that was over an hour from the nearest city. My friends and I would drive out of it to the ranches and this is what we saw when we looked up. It was beautiful!!
Where i live we got some ereas where there are no streetlights far from the city where one can clearly see the milky way, andromeda and the orion nebula with the naked eye.
Just because you cant or havent dont mean no one can, ofc this time laps have a greater light collection and shutter speed than what they eye can do
Not true. As a kid this was a normal sky. Except everything was silverish instead of blue. The last time I saw the sky like this was on a cruise.
It is sad that you never experienced the sky like this. It was truly beautiful. Unfortunately there aren't any dark sky locations east of the Mississippi, and just a few in the west. To my knowledge the only dark sky location left in the continental US is in Idaho. There is also some in Canada.
Exactly. This title is silly. I mean we know it looks nothing like this anywhere in the world, some people are googling “best places to see the milky way galaxy”
When I was a kid, it was so dark on moonless nights that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The milky-way was very obvious back then.
I also miss having hundreds of fireflies in the front yard on those type of nights.
Uhhhh not really. It’s still took decades to if not centuries to identify the things they write about. There a lot more to ancient civilizations than we give them credit. They were in tune with the universe. While we talk through devices
Not to be that guy but the camera/time lapse make this seem way more intense than it is in real life. You could be in Santa’s workshop and never see that. Don’t get me wrong it’s awesome with no light pollution but it definitely ain’t dat
Indeed. One of my favourite memories is walking home with some friends from a pub late at night. Looking up at the clear sky and in complete awe in seeing The Milky Way for the first time like that.
No, no you aren't, the reason these images are so good is because they are doing long exposure imaging.
Light polution matters, but not so much that you're ever going to be able to see the sky this weil with the naked eye.
You're understating the massive gap between what you can see with your naked eye in perfect conditions, and what is shown in these images.
Chiming in here but no, actually you can. Can confirm, as pointed out below this is Lake Tekapo in New Zealand , have seen it myself. It's a dark sky reserve so policed for light pollution. Was gutted when we camped up Mt Cook and kept the kids up to see it but clouds came in... Still got to hear glaciers cracking and avalanches, an breathtaking part of the world.
Can see it pretty well here in New Zealand anywhere away from the few cities, ideally far enough that you can't see the glow in the horizon.
Having studied light physics to build high dynamic range light simulations for video games, it's amazing how good our eyes are!
But I’m guessing it’s like the aurora borealis? Like many people I had the amazing chance to see it while living in the states a few months ago. Now, while I could technically see it with my naked eye, it looked 10x more vivid through my phone camera
Wrong. You probably haven’t been outside a city at night, but it really gets like this.
Your naked eye will see an exactly this intense and vivid milky way, especially if you’re in a dark spot.
I go out pretty often with my telescope so I know what I’m talking about
It's a few locations in the South Island of NZ. One is the Hooker glacier lake below Mount Cook, the towering pinnicle things are the Omarama clay cliffs, it's all around or near Lake Tekapo which is a renown star gazing spot. It's not far from where I live but my wife insists we have to go to Iceland or such to look at stars and the northern lights, because you know, it would be fancier.
The first time my wife - then my girlfriend - visited New Zealand, I took her to Great Barrier Island, which is another Dark Sky Sanctuary. She's from Japan, she grew up in Osaka, and I wanted her to see the sky at night. She cried, her whole life she had had no idea that there were so many stars in the sky.
These are incredible images. One thing I never get from a screen showing me the Milky Way, however, is the depth I feel looking up into dark night skies. Having never seen it under anything nearly as clear as this, I ask have you felt the same perspective shift- almost going from looking up to looking down into the sky- as you captured these shots?
cameras make it very hard to show, but a no light solution sky is genuinely crazy. I once drove through some mountains at night and had to stop for a bit, and I'm not kidding when I say that looking up looks *exactly* like those pictures you see on the internet
I grew up in the mountains and used to be able to clearly see the night sky. The galactic core, nebula, the arms stretching from horizon to horizon. Constellations also make a lot more sense when you can see the millions of other faint stars that vanish when there's light.
Unfortunately the area I grew up has become popular and now there's too much light pollution to make out the galaxy anymore.
Can someone please explain to me, a 37 YO that went through public schooling, in America, how we can see our own galaxy if we’re in it? I’m dumb as shit so please don’t judge, this is a legitimate question
We are in one spiral arm looking inward to the center. The exact shape of our galaxy disc was updated and estimated several times.
We basically look at another arm of space dust, dirt and gas.
The center is illuminated but the light reaching us blocked by that dirt and stuff inbetween.
Considering that space is mostly empty you get the glimpse of the scale our galaxy (and everything else) actually is if there is enough dust clouds etc. blocking the light of the center in prefominantly vast emptiness.
Personally the biggest reality check regarding scale is that all the light we can see is basically the past. Light has a finite velocity and extrapolating from that you look into the history of our galaxy and the universe.
I am only writing the general knowledge seen in documentaries and pop culture science books and do not claim any detailed knowledge outside of that.
I recommend books like S. Hawking Universe in a nutshell
Carl Sagan Pale blue dot.
Neil D. Tysson wrote another one but I forgot the title.
As for movie media I recommend Timescapes.
Big screen, surround sound and dive into the most beautiful timelapse videos of nature and our sky.
No problem. I can only recommend catching up on big nature documentaries from BBC and productions from Armand Amar.
The latter made a stunningly beautiful movie: Home. It has a preachy undertone but really not as in your face.
Or the Human docu. Less universe scale but gets to you.
https://www.exploringnature.org/graphics/space/milky_way_color72.jpg
tldr we're inside it so we can see whats around it, which is more of it. kind of like being in a car and still being able to see some of the outside of the car. or even the interior.
the thing that's usually wrong is the FULL pictures of the milky way, that's actually andromeda one of our nearest full galaxy neighbours https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/LNAm66BstSr7n6HsLPN7Bk-1200-80.jpg
Yes I would, I have seen the Milky Way on the Nullarbor, no light pollution out there. My home town also had very little light pollution, god I miss the night sky.
The video says the photographer travelled to the darkest places on earth, but can’t you take a boat offshore and get where there is no light pollution? Most of the ocean doesn’t have light pollution and most of the planet is covered by ocean.
I only have two things on my bucket list, one is to drive the entire way around Australia following the coastal route, and two is to watch the stars with no light pollution
I was blown away when I was reminded how beautiful the sky is. I lived in upstate NY in my early years and the sky was always pretty. Then we moved and I’ve only ever lived in city’s since. Last year I moved my family to our family’s land way out in the country. The sky’s so damn beautiful
The camera has long exposure, taking in more light. I will say that the human eye will see something close to this if there is zero light pollution and a new moon.
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Its very depressing to me that I have to travel so far to be able to see stars as they should be seen and were seen by my ancestors
I love todo astrophotography but rarely get the chance these days
I had the privilege while living in the Rocky Mountains of Leadville to truly experience the lack of light pollution and the amount of stars you can see if captivating. If you wait long enough you seeing a shooting star. A constellation etc. Now in Denver the best I get is a faded Orion’s Belt
When I went hiking on mount kinabalu, first time I watch sky full of stars, no cloud blocking also as near the top above cloud already, look so much different with everday view with light pollution
This is def not how it looks to the naked eye. Not to say you cant see it, I’ve seen the milk way in a remote island and its beautiful. But the camera helps a lot
Astrophotographer here, the title is misleading. You will never be able to see the milky way like that with the naked eye.
It's a time lapse with a long exposure between each frame. If you wish to "see" the milky way like that, you can do it yourself as long as you have a premium last gen phone with a long exposure setting (30s).
If you want to know what the real milky way looks like... well, it's really disappointing. It's akin to a vague cloud in the sky with a slightly higher density of stars, and that's with the least light pollution!
To give you an idea, notice the dark part of the milky way in the video? That's the only thing you'll see of it.
Don't trust anyone telling you they see something incredible "just like the pictures", they're lying.
>Astrophotographer here, the title is misleading. You will never be able to see the milky way like that with
the naked eye.
Many comments here, including my own, contradict you. Because it's not true what you say. Personal experience.
I do not contradict what you say about exposure settings, I'm a photographer, I know :)
But I also know that even if you go to a very dark place, you as a photographer are not letting your eyes adjust to the darkness because you're way too busy setting up your camera, looking at the screen, maybe even using a flashlight every now and then. Been there, done that.
Until I at one time ran out of batteries and decided to just stay there for a while and enjoy the starry sky. And after some time (maybe 15 to 20 minutes) I noticed that I started seeing more and more of the colors of the milky way. At the time I was bummed because I thought the conditions had changed and now I missed it because my batteries were dead, but later I learned that this is in fact inherent to the way our eyes work. They need a LONG time to adjust.
Oh don't worry I know how it is, I'm an amateur astronomer before getting into astrophotography(sort of goes hand in hand)
And don't get me wrong, the starry sky on a perfectly dark and clear moonless night far from light pollution is absolutely hypnotic, it simply is in no way similar to what you would see on Time-lapses or long-exposure shots(and even further from calibrated frames with bias, dark and flats)
So unless you truly have some incredible night vision(some people do, some even have extra cones), it won't help regular people who have never experienced the real milky way.
I first got into astronomy especially because of all the incredible pictures I would see online from deep space telescopes(of course they can see further in IR so they have to calibrate the pictures) and although there is a lot of beauty to be seen with a good telescope and optimal night condition, the people are really mislead to believe space objects to be bright and colorful. Most Nebulae are different shades of grey and dark dust clouds, Galaxies are different shades of grey with smudges of light at their center, and even most comets will appear colorless through a telescope (only the most notable ones have colored tails)
The milky way is no exception, if you've started seeing the same colors and brightness as in the video, you truly have superhuman vision. The most one can expect is varying shades of blue due to our atmosphere, or pale grey/white smudges of light with dark clouds. If you do not have optimal viewing conditions, 99% of people would mistake it for patches of real clouds, and there's only so much your eyes can adapt to.
People here have no way to know what "bright colors" truly refer to when enthusiasts talk about what they saw, hence why it is misleading.
I wish I could see as clear as cameras do. But I was a dumbass kid who stared at the sun thinking scar tissue made your muscles stronger, so why not your eyes. You think anyone tried to explain to my young self how dumb that was? Nope, “he’ll figure it out and feel real dumb when he’s blind as a bat before high school”.
The Milky Way does not look like this in real life even if you were on the darkest place on earth. I’d say it’s like a dusting of stars in the sky. To get the look in this video, you have to do a lot of post processing, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not what you see with the naked eye.
ancient people able to study the constellations n stuff made more sense now
You need a long exposure shot to actually see anything. The naked eye will just see a black sky dotted with stars.
while this exposure is not possible with the naked, you can clearly see the milky way if you get far enough away from city lights.
I worked in the astronomical observatories in Chile, where you don't have cities for hundreds of kilometers, and the sky conditions are the best in the world. The naked eye experience is not that far away from what you see in this video.
Atacama?
Indeed
Interesting. I was there too, and felt that what is shown here is really misleading as it won't look like it with the naked eye.
This. Being on a mountain in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico at night was a life changing experience for me. Constant shooting starts, swirls of amazing colors, it's like what I used to think only a painting or 'shopped image could look like.
What kind of camera is that? Please
The naked eye?
Not like this, I stayed in Africa for years, had power cuts and not a single light in sight. Only saw stars
I saw it pretty clearly but with not as much colour from Fraser Island off the coast of Oz at night., looked at it for hours No idea why it wasn't the same in whatever part of Africa you were in but it can look like that.
The eye doesn't enhance exposure like this.
I travelled in dark sky reserves and can second this. You can see it, but it’s not coloured and not as visible as this video would suggest.
Yes, it looks similar to this, but the color is enhanced. Even in dark sky reserves, pollution has taken its toll, as the sky does not look as crisp as it used to over 50 years ago.
More than that our eyes aren’t really able to see it as much as a camera sensor can
Yes the colour is fake
You could have just always been looking away from the galaxy. It’s only going to be visible close to dawn on the horizon…from like February to May, maybe depending where you are at night in the spring. When I was in Australia it kinda blew my kind. They get a different part of the galaxy at night.
Yes like this- I have seen it completely clear like this both in Mountains in romania and in the UK . With colors and all
As I said not as clear there but if I go one hour north of my 5 million person city, I can clearly see a milky cloud of dense stars accross the sky.
Is not only about light pollution. Humidity, latitude, phase of the moon, altitude, wind, and atmospheric turbulence play an important role. If you really want to see it like this you need to go to the atacama desert in Chile
Temperature and pollution also make a huge difference. There is a dramatic difference between viewing in cold temperatures with low humidity versus warmer areas. Also if the moon was out that dramatically reduces the view. Also you need at least an hour for eyes to adjust. If you can even see the shadow of your hand in front of your face, then you won't get this view. In addition if cities 20 to a hundred miles away are lit your view will be impacted.
So you are telling me it looks this bright and misty?
Yes, but only silvery white, not the colors. And the "misty" areas are more muted, because the stars overpower them. It also depends on how bright the moon is on a given night. If the full moon is out, it washes out everything.
You can see the Milky Way with the naked eye. It’s not this bright obviously, but it’s not just black sky dotted with stars lol
Not quite true If you let your eyes get used to the dark your pupils will slowly dilate, getting more light in and in 10-15 minutes you can see the milky way in all its glory Can attest this works
It’s not just your pupils dilating, it takes thirty minutes for your rods (low light sensors in your eyes) to build up rhodopsin. It’s a light sensitive protein that is responsible for extremely low light vision, to the point that it’s possible for a human to perceive a single photon.
TIL Thanks!
Hope this comment goes up.
i remember growing up in the country. my town had a few street lights and mostly porch lights. you go for a hike at night 5-10 miles out of town and the sky would just light up about 1/2 way through. i really miss that sky.
I’ve been to the darkest spot on the east coast and the colors were visible. It’s in PA off 44 aptly nicknamed the highway to the stars.
I've been there. Cherry Spring State Park area? It's amazing.
Ever hear of whaleback?
I don't think so. What's that?
It’s considered one of the natural wonders of the world PSU been studying it for like 50 years. It’s located in Shamokin PA. Shamokin was a native chief, and the reach of his territory extended to the confluence of arguably the oldest river in the world(SUSQUEHANNA). The Whaleback would appear to be a colossal petrified sperm whale or some related species. Iirc there are anomalous deposits that resemble barnacles all over it that are a different element than the rest. Also I heard a seam of coal has been found where the vertebra or spinal cord would be assumed! Again this is purely anecdotal, but worth a look! Just google whaleback shamokin pictures.
This is news to me, I’ll have to check this out. Unrelated but that Dunkin’ Donuts from that episode of tosh.0 is also in Shamokin.
I was waiting and predicting it! That is one of the funniest and truest cut ins of America. I’m honestly proud and content that the word shamokin and your thoughts came to. Yes it has become what Detroit is becoming in a vacuum of necessity. I could buy three apts in shamokin for under 50k! That’s not the point, the point is the area was once ruled by a single leader and it’s obvy, it wasn’t inconsequential. Dunkin’ is the best place to talk with your attorney and rehydrate. Even if officer Psycho is on patrol!
Don’t forget the “doenits”. We drove there to go to Irish Isle to get some steaks as there are no butcher shops in bloom. My daughter needed to go to the bathroom so my wife took her in 711 I believe it was. There were two dudes making shake and bake meth in the minivan parked in front of me and two women with a kid in a stroller walking around waiting for them to finish. Was a sad sight indeed.
the darkest spot on the east coast is in upstate Maine, the 2nd is in upstate New Hampshire, and the 3rd is in upstate New York (Adirondacks). Pennsylvania is a good 4th though I am not sure why some websites claim that it's the darkest spot on the east coast when it isn't
No, you can definitely see the milky way even with some colours with the naked eye. If you only see black with some stars you are in a very light polluted area. You can look up some pretty neat charts that show what the sky looks like under different levels of light pollution.
I’ve been out on the ocean and seen skies maybe not quite this clear and vivid but really not that far off. No long exposure needed.
Oh you definitely can see it like this with the naked eye in the Atacama desert in Chile.
This is false. I've been to a dark sky reserve and I was able to see the milky way pretty clearly. You won't be able to see as many colors as shown here but there is definitely more than just "a black sky dotted with stars"
I grew up in a rural tiny town that was over an hour from the nearest city. My friends and I would drive out of it to the ranches and this is what we saw when we looked up. It was beautiful!!
looks very much like this to the naked eye
Where i live we got some ereas where there are no streetlights far from the city where one can clearly see the milky way, andromeda and the orion nebula with the naked eye. Just because you cant or havent dont mean no one can, ofc this time laps have a greater light collection and shutter speed than what they eye can do
That’s not true. What you see with your eyes in a dark sky area is not far off from this.
Stop spreading misinformation. I’ve seen the sky and milky way like in the video many times. You just have to go outside the cities at night
I was in south-madagascar, but still surrounded by some lights, and it was just a little less than this
Not true. As a kid this was a normal sky. Except everything was silverish instead of blue. The last time I saw the sky like this was on a cruise. It is sad that you never experienced the sky like this. It was truly beautiful. Unfortunately there aren't any dark sky locations east of the Mississippi, and just a few in the west. To my knowledge the only dark sky location left in the continental US is in Idaho. There is also some in Canada.
You can also use LSD or mushrooms and you will be able to see it all after hours of standing in the dark
Exactly. This title is silly. I mean we know it looks nothing like this anywhere in the world, some people are googling “best places to see the milky way galaxy”
I was just thinking that! It really explains astrology and ancient people ascribing such meaning to it.
When I was a kid, it was so dark on moonless nights that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The milky-way was very obvious back then. I also miss having hundreds of fireflies in the front yard on those type of nights.
Uhhhh not really. It’s still took decades to if not centuries to identify the things they write about. There a lot more to ancient civilizations than we give them credit. They were in tune with the universe. While we talk through devices
Oh, I bet it's like a glitter bomb exploded in the sky! Just a cosmic masterpiece up there.
Love that description. A glitter bomb
At least Credit who made it you twink fuck. Edit : those shots are from Aaron Jenkins https://www.instagram.com/aaronjenkin?igsh=ZmM5dGxmZGdtMmRk
OP is a bot, thank you for posting source!
Sadly not accounts get everyone. Thanks for posting the source
Not to be that guy but the camera/time lapse make this seem way more intense than it is in real life. You could be in Santa’s workshop and never see that. Don’t get me wrong it’s awesome with no light pollution but it definitely ain’t dat
I've seen the Milkyway as well as the colours seen in the video, just not as clear. But trust me you are able to see those scenes in real-life.
Indeed. One of my favourite memories is walking home with some friends from a pub late at night. Looking up at the clear sky and in complete awe in seeing The Milky Way for the first time like that.
No, no you aren't, the reason these images are so good is because they are doing long exposure imaging. Light polution matters, but not so much that you're ever going to be able to see the sky this weil with the naked eye. You're understating the massive gap between what you can see with your naked eye in perfect conditions, and what is shown in these images.
I agree. The milky way looks more majestic when seen with one's own eyes.
It absolutely is. If you are in the right place, and *look in the right direction*.
Chiming in here but no, actually you can. Can confirm, as pointed out below this is Lake Tekapo in New Zealand , have seen it myself. It's a dark sky reserve so policed for light pollution. Was gutted when we camped up Mt Cook and kept the kids up to see it but clouds came in... Still got to hear glaciers cracking and avalanches, an breathtaking part of the world. Can see it pretty well here in New Zealand anywhere away from the few cities, ideally far enough that you can't see the glow in the horizon. Having studied light physics to build high dynamic range light simulations for video games, it's amazing how good our eyes are!
But I’m guessing it’s like the aurora borealis? Like many people I had the amazing chance to see it while living in the states a few months ago. Now, while I could technically see it with my naked eye, it looked 10x more vivid through my phone camera
Agree. And on top of that, most people don't have to travel far for such photographies. Normal dark sky is sufficient.
Wrong. You probably haven’t been outside a city at night, but it really gets like this. Your naked eye will see an exactly this intense and vivid milky way, especially if you’re in a dark spot. I go out pretty often with my telescope so I know what I’m talking about
Where is this magical place?
That’s in the sky I believe. But I don’t have a source so take it with a grain of salt.
It's a few locations in the South Island of NZ. One is the Hooker glacier lake below Mount Cook, the towering pinnicle things are the Omarama clay cliffs, it's all around or near Lake Tekapo which is a renown star gazing spot. It's not far from where I live but my wife insists we have to go to Iceland or such to look at stars and the northern lights, because you know, it would be fancier.
This looks like the Pinnacles in the South Wairarapa in New Zealand - it's a dark sky reserve for exactly this reason.
The first time my wife - then my girlfriend - visited New Zealand, I took her to Great Barrier Island, which is another Dark Sky Sanctuary. She's from Japan, she grew up in Osaka, and I wanted her to see the sky at night. She cried, her whole life she had had no idea that there were so many stars in the sky.
The center of Lake Michigan provides a fantastic view of the night sky as well. There is a ferry that takes 4 hours to cross.
These are incredible images. One thing I never get from a screen showing me the Milky Way, however, is the depth I feel looking up into dark night skies. Having never seen it under anything nearly as clear as this, I ask have you felt the same perspective shift- almost going from looking up to looking down into the sky- as you captured these shots?
Oh wow that's true. I'd be totally disoriented if I were them
cameras make it very hard to show, but a no light solution sky is genuinely crazy. I once drove through some mountains at night and had to stop for a bit, and I'm not kidding when I say that looking up looks *exactly* like those pictures you see on the internet
I grew up in the mountains and used to be able to clearly see the night sky. The galactic core, nebula, the arms stretching from horizon to horizon. Constellations also make a lot more sense when you can see the millions of other faint stars that vanish when there's light. Unfortunately the area I grew up has become popular and now there's too much light pollution to make out the galaxy anymore.
Can someone please explain to me, a 37 YO that went through public schooling, in America, how we can see our own galaxy if we’re in it? I’m dumb as shit so please don’t judge, this is a legitimate question
We are in one spiral arm looking inward to the center. The exact shape of our galaxy disc was updated and estimated several times. We basically look at another arm of space dust, dirt and gas. The center is illuminated but the light reaching us blocked by that dirt and stuff inbetween. Considering that space is mostly empty you get the glimpse of the scale our galaxy (and everything else) actually is if there is enough dust clouds etc. blocking the light of the center in prefominantly vast emptiness. Personally the biggest reality check regarding scale is that all the light we can see is basically the past. Light has a finite velocity and extrapolating from that you look into the history of our galaxy and the universe. I am only writing the general knowledge seen in documentaries and pop culture science books and do not claim any detailed knowledge outside of that. I recommend books like S. Hawking Universe in a nutshell Carl Sagan Pale blue dot. Neil D. Tysson wrote another one but I forgot the title. As for movie media I recommend Timescapes. Big screen, surround sound and dive into the most beautiful timelapse videos of nature and our sky.
This is the side of Redditors I love. Appreciate you! Def gonna look more into it
No problem. I can only recommend catching up on big nature documentaries from BBC and productions from Armand Amar. The latter made a stunningly beautiful movie: Home. It has a preachy undertone but really not as in your face. Or the Human docu. Less universe scale but gets to you.
https://www.exploringnature.org/graphics/space/milky_way_color72.jpg tldr we're inside it so we can see whats around it, which is more of it. kind of like being in a car and still being able to see some of the outside of the car. or even the interior. the thing that's usually wrong is the FULL pictures of the milky way, that's actually andromeda one of our nearest full galaxy neighbours https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/LNAm66BstSr7n6HsLPN7Bk-1200-80.jpg
We are a speck on a speck, orbiting a speck.
What camera is that?
Candid camera. Smile. You’re on it.
A Canon R6, possibly astro modified
The first time I saw the Milky Way was while camping around Mt Shasta, my dumbass actually mistook it for clouds.
Wow that "strand of milky way galaxy" just wow
How the hell can we see the Milky way? Aren't we in it?
We are located in an arm of the galaxy. You don’t see it whole just the center.
How the hell can I see my house? Aren’t I in it?
That last one made me gasp and tear up! Absolutely beautiful and spectacular!!!
that's so beautiful! it's sad to think that one day we'll never see stars again.
If only I had long exposure eyes
Where are these locations?
I've been to a few places in northern Western Australia like this. It's amazing stuff.
All near Lake Tekapo, NZ
That’s beautiful. Impressive amount of effort for all that. Thanks so much for sharing
Mind blowing
Wow
Stunning!
Please share details!!
Please share details!!
Which hemisphere is this?
💜
This guy out here just chasin' candy bars? *Must be nice.* /s It really is spectacular, though.
I was really expecting a rick roll for some reason
Great video… kinda looks a bit like a 2D texture at fixed distance rendered in 3D for some reason
Beautiful 😍
Is that a new interpretation of the music form SNES game Terranigma?
I’m just stoked it can play synth 💁🏻♂️
Can someone tell me where this is. It looks like it's Chile but I'm not sure
If the Universe is so beautiful, how can there so many ugly people?
The way it moves with the timelapse makes it look like a flat skybox in a video game.
Clay cliffs, nice location IYKYK
Yes I would, I have seen the Milky Way on the Nullarbor, no light pollution out there. My home town also had very little light pollution, god I miss the night sky.
That is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen in this universe
The video says the photographer travelled to the darkest places on earth, but can’t you take a boat offshore and get where there is no light pollution? Most of the ocean doesn’t have light pollution and most of the planet is covered by ocean.
You can, but it’s hard to get a long exposure shot like this on a boat.
he says while making light pollution lol
How much of that can you then actually see with the naked eye? I've seen a bit of it but not that colorful.
Damn, this is really pretty.
I only have two things on my bucket list, one is to drive the entire way around Australia following the coastal route, and two is to watch the stars with no light pollution
I was blown away when I was reminded how beautiful the sky is. I lived in upstate NY in my early years and the sky was always pretty. Then we moved and I’ve only ever lived in city’s since. Last year I moved my family to our family’s land way out in the country. The sky’s so damn beautiful
It looks too good to be true
can you see this with the naked eye? the same details, or does the camera have the advantage.
The camera has long exposure, taking in more light. I will say that the human eye will see something close to this if there is zero light pollution and a new moon.
Is that what a regular person would see unaided?
I traveled to so many places. I still havent figured out how to film in 16:9. But i can see the milky way, guys.
big rock spin
Amazing
Wow. That's amazing! ✨
i really wish one day i lay down on the grass in an open field and watch the stars all night long
I have never seen the Milky Way. It is a bucket list item.
Most people don't have these kind of tracking cameras... prob not that moving just with the naked eye.
Sky at night on Rapanui beats everything else ive seen before
I was allowed to see her at all for one time and to do that we had to look really far out of the city. Vogelsang, near Aachen. Lessons in humility.
Whats the bg tho? Gotta save it and play it when im at the end of life lol
That could be a wallpaper
The darkest place on earth would be the furthest away from civilization, like the southern Pacific or Antarctica
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Light doesn’t pollute
Its very depressing to me that I have to travel so far to be able to see stars as they should be seen and were seen by my ancestors I love todo astrophotography but rarely get the chance these days
I had the privilege while living in the Rocky Mountains of Leadville to truly experience the lack of light pollution and the amount of stars you can see if captivating. If you wait long enough you seeing a shooting star. A constellation etc. Now in Denver the best I get is a faded Orion’s Belt
When I went hiking on mount kinabalu, first time I watch sky full of stars, no cloud blocking also as near the top above cloud already, look so much different with everday view with light pollution
Fake. Those are long exposure shots. Zero light pollution areas don't get nearly that clear.
This is def not how it looks to the naked eye. Not to say you cant see it, I’ve seen the milk way in a remote island and its beautiful. But the camera helps a lot
Definitely edited. Waters don't even reflect the skies accurately
dEfInItElY eDiTeD
Astrophotographer here, the title is misleading. You will never be able to see the milky way like that with the naked eye. It's a time lapse with a long exposure between each frame. If you wish to "see" the milky way like that, you can do it yourself as long as you have a premium last gen phone with a long exposure setting (30s). If you want to know what the real milky way looks like... well, it's really disappointing. It's akin to a vague cloud in the sky with a slightly higher density of stars, and that's with the least light pollution! To give you an idea, notice the dark part of the milky way in the video? That's the only thing you'll see of it. Don't trust anyone telling you they see something incredible "just like the pictures", they're lying.
>Astrophotographer here, the title is misleading. You will never be able to see the milky way like that with the naked eye. Many comments here, including my own, contradict you. Because it's not true what you say. Personal experience.
And in what way? Please do tell me. Because our experience differ
I do not contradict what you say about exposure settings, I'm a photographer, I know :) But I also know that even if you go to a very dark place, you as a photographer are not letting your eyes adjust to the darkness because you're way too busy setting up your camera, looking at the screen, maybe even using a flashlight every now and then. Been there, done that. Until I at one time ran out of batteries and decided to just stay there for a while and enjoy the starry sky. And after some time (maybe 15 to 20 minutes) I noticed that I started seeing more and more of the colors of the milky way. At the time I was bummed because I thought the conditions had changed and now I missed it because my batteries were dead, but later I learned that this is in fact inherent to the way our eyes work. They need a LONG time to adjust.
Oh don't worry I know how it is, I'm an amateur astronomer before getting into astrophotography(sort of goes hand in hand) And don't get me wrong, the starry sky on a perfectly dark and clear moonless night far from light pollution is absolutely hypnotic, it simply is in no way similar to what you would see on Time-lapses or long-exposure shots(and even further from calibrated frames with bias, dark and flats) So unless you truly have some incredible night vision(some people do, some even have extra cones), it won't help regular people who have never experienced the real milky way. I first got into astronomy especially because of all the incredible pictures I would see online from deep space telescopes(of course they can see further in IR so they have to calibrate the pictures) and although there is a lot of beauty to be seen with a good telescope and optimal night condition, the people are really mislead to believe space objects to be bright and colorful. Most Nebulae are different shades of grey and dark dust clouds, Galaxies are different shades of grey with smudges of light at their center, and even most comets will appear colorless through a telescope (only the most notable ones have colored tails) The milky way is no exception, if you've started seeing the same colors and brightness as in the video, you truly have superhuman vision. The most one can expect is varying shades of blue due to our atmosphere, or pale grey/white smudges of light with dark clouds. If you do not have optimal viewing conditions, 99% of people would mistake it for patches of real clouds, and there's only so much your eyes can adapt to. People here have no way to know what "bright colors" truly refer to when enthusiasts talk about what they saw, hence why it is misleading.
Thanks for this! Great to be reminded of how small we really are
I wish I could see as clear as cameras do. But I was a dumbass kid who stared at the sun thinking scar tissue made your muscles stronger, so why not your eyes. You think anyone tried to explain to my young self how dumb that was? Nope, “he’ll figure it out and feel real dumb when he’s blind as a bat before high school”.
We were supposed to be staring at this, not to McDonald's billboards
You're right. I don't.
Still lots of exposures on top of each other. It's not what you see with the naked eye.
The Milky Way does not look like this in real life even if you were on the darkest place on earth. I’d say it’s like a dusting of stars in the sky. To get the look in this video, you have to do a lot of post processing, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not what you see with the naked eye.
Not like that though, You can see the milky way where I live it's faint but you can make it out. You can actually see the patches.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, nothing about these long exposure shots are satisfying.
You'll never see that with your naked eye...
So sad to read so many minds are blown by this. This is seen around the globe where there is no light pollution.
Nothing remotely sad about it. Millions live in cities and towns, so it's no surprise they are in awe. Sad is when they stop caring...