#i grew up outside of nasa and its haunted me ever since

[phantomskeep]

One of my favorite things about working offshore is, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in the dead of night? The sky is always a 3-1 on this scale. In school we learned to navigate by stars, how to know and respect them (yes, it's outdated and old. We don't really use Celestial Navigation anymore. But, in the USA, we have to take the course and learn. Just in case). I can sit down and point out where every navigable star is, how to find them from constellation to constellation. When I was training C-Nav was one of my favorite courses - I got to use a SEXTANT! And stargaze!! For a grade!!! (Ew to the math that came with it, though)

In the dead of night when I'm on the balls to four watch? I'll walk outside and sit on the bridge wing and just. Gaze. There's nothing that makes you feel more small than being on a vessel with maybe 10 other people on it, in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles away from land. And you look up and see galaxies. I could see the Milky Way with the naked eye. I've watched meteors crash into the ocean and burn in the atmosphere. I've seen the northern lights dance amongst the stars when my vessel dropped cargo off in Iceland. There is... Nothing like it. Words cannot describe the feeling of smallness that comes with seeing the history of the entire universe around you.

It sucks that more people can't see it. I live in the middle of no-where but I'm close enough to a massive city (90 miles away. Yay.) that it still pollutes the sky. It's one of the reasons I stay with my job. I get to see the entire universe without any fancy equipment. I can look out the window and see everything reflected on calm waters. Those days? When the seas are smooth and there's a reflection of everything? It's breathtaking. You feel like you're floating in space. Like nothing can touch you yet everything can at once.

I wish more people can experience it.

I think one big reason why we don't consider the stars as important as before (not even pop-astrology anymore cares about the stars or the sky on itself, just the signs deprived of context) is because of light pollution.

For most of human history the sky looked between 1-3, 4 at most. And then all of a sudden with electrification it was gone (I'm lucky if I get 6 in my small city). The first time I saw the Milky Way fully as a kid was a spiritual experience, I was almost scared on how BRIGHT it was, it felt like someone was looking back at me. You don't get that at all with modern light pollution.

When most people talk about stargazing nowadays they think about watching about a couple of bright dots. The stars are really, really not like that. The unpolluted night sky is a festival of fireworks. There is nothing like it.