To those who cannot quite find themselves in their own state of darkness: The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale for the amateur astronomer.A nine-level numeric scale that measures the brightness of the night sky.
CLASS 9: An Inner-city Sky.The sky is brilliantly lit. Light pollution makes your dirt tracks visible beyond compare. You see the path to your destination. My dear, you sprint as fast as your feet can take you. There is no hesitance.
CLASS 6: A Bright Suburban Sky.You look up at the lamp posts and they are dimmer than you last remember. The horizon does not look as surely as it did before. Your steps are smaller–as small as the stripe of illumination splashed across your path. You don't quite run as much as you uncertainly walk.
CLASS 3: A Rural Sky.The darkness has a choking hold around your neck. There is no light. You are on your hands and knees, for the only way forward is to know the ground still existed underneath your feet. Where do I go, why am I here, what do I do--
You look up.
The soft, yellow glow of the zodiacal light. Faintly illuminated clouds. Globular clusters distinctly there. A complex architecture of dark voids and bright patches that is the Milky Way, spattered against the night sky.
To those who cannot quite find themselves in their own state of darkness:The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale for the amateur astronomer. The darker the skies, the brighter the entire universe.
CLASS 1: Unequivocally dark skies.You touch the darkness the same way you taste it against your teeth.
You see nothing.
And it is in this nothingness,
You see absolutely everything.
