Video: I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen the Little Dipper – the 2003 blackout, a family trip to the Grand Canyon, a camping trip, and a stargazing drive through Wisconsin cut short by the cold. I don’t remember ever seeing the faint band of the Milky Way. Growing up in New York’s suburbs, there just aren’t many stars visible in the night sky.
What Times Square might look like if you could actually see the stars. Image: SKYGLOW
So you can imagine that this new video from SKYGLOW has hit pretty close to home. It isn’t real footage – it’s video of New York City with the stars from dark-sky locations such as the Grand Canyon and Death Valley superimposed on top.
We’ve been covering the SKYGLOW folks for a while now, as they film existential crisis-inducing timelapses of the sky from landmarks such as the Grand Canyon and Carhenge. The SKYGLOW project seeks to raise awareness of light pollution and disappearing night skies. They have previously made a similar video of Los Angeles.
April 15 to 21 is the Dark Sky Association’s Dark Sky Week, which, I mean, it doesn’t seem as though New York City plans on turning out the lights to honour. Aside from blackouts, NYC will probably never look like this. The closest dark-sky spots are all several hours away by car, so celebrating might require a holiday.
Watching this video makes me want to move.
[Vimeo]