The Dark Side of Texas: Why The Beloved Starry Skies Of West Texas Continue To Instill Wonder, Part 3 Of A Series

A Journey Through The Lone Star State’s Darkest Nights, Where Stargazers Find Wonder In Every Flicker Of Light

By Ryan Cantrell, McDonald Observatory Photography courtesy of Ryan Cantrell

I recently saw my shadow cast by the planet Venus, which is the second-brightest object in the night sky after Earth’s much brighter moon. Whenever I tell my friends this, I get these confused, awkward facial expressions. Conversely, you’d get the same reaction from the locals of West Texas if you couldn’t witness such a phenomenon.

An Increasing Rarity Everywhere Else, The Dark Night Skies Of West Texas Shine Bright In The Hearts Of All Who Have Had The Good Fortune To See Them

So much so that millions of visitors descend on this region to witness for themselves humanity’s gateway to the universe. 

On a moonless night, it’s not difficult to see thousands of stars, so many that picking out popular constellations becomes difficult. You’ll also be treated to one of the greatest spectacles nature has to offer: a raw, uncensored view of the Milky Way galaxy, a band of ethereal light that stretches across the entire sky. Its blurry light stems from the collection of tens of billions of stars, seemingly clumped together, but all light-years apart from one another… they just look close from our perspective.

There’s more to see. If you know where to look, you will be able to make out the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor at 2.5 million light-years away. It will appear as a blurry dash next to the Milky Way. If you happen to have binoculars or a small telescope with you, also look for the faint glow of globular star clusters, groups of hundreds of thousands of stars that are tightly knit together by gravity. Nebulae, which are essentially giant clouds of space dust, are also easy to pick out. And, of course, our solar system’s planets shine with a striking clarity.

While The Main Show Is Undoubtedly Overhead, You May Be Surprised By What Else You Can See When Looking Down

Night is never absolutely pitch black. Even when the Moon is absent, you still have the faint light of all the stars. Human eyes aren’t very good at discerning details in low-light conditions, but when you give enough time for them to fully adapt, about 25 minutes, you’ll begin to notice rough, yet very dim details. This is thanks to the combined starlight cast onto the Earth. You can navigate by starlight, speaking from personal experience.

Possibly the most prolific human invention was the electric light, transforming our productivity by enabling us to expand our livelihoods and ambitions beyond daylight hours into the entire day-night cycle. This has come at the cost of the night sky thanks to a common problem: lighting misuse. In essence, light pollution is artificial lighting produced in such excess that much of it drifts upward into the sky. It’s estimated that 80 percent of humanity lives under some form of light pollution. For astronomical observations, this creates a “light dome” that obscures many dimmer celestial objects, such as faint stars and distant galaxies. This, however, is an extremely easy issue to mitigate by implementing night-sky-friendly lighting practices. These include installing shielded fixtures that shine light downward; opting for warmer, amber-colored hues; and having lights turn off automatically when not in use.

A large portion of the Trans-Pecos region in Texas is within the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve, a cooperative among parks, communities, and organizations that’ve all adopted night-sky-friendly lighting. It’s the largest dark sky reserve on Earth, spanning 15,000 square miles. At its core, the area with the most stringent lighting rules is the McDonald Observatory, which attracts more than 60,000 visitors annually. As a member of the observatory’s public programs team, I speak to hundreds of people a week. I have yet to encounter a single individual who is offended by the dark natural sky; if anything, I’ve learned that folks are willing to travel great distances for the experience.

Along With Allowing Us To Stargaze, The Darkness Of Earth’s Skies Is Absolutely Indispensable For Astronomical Research

It allows telescopes to detect the faint light from celestial objects billions of light-years away. In fact, most ground-based telescopes can “see” the same light that humans detect, called visible light. It is only a small fraction of all light in the electromagnetic spectrum. Earth’s atmosphere does a great job at reflecting other forms of light, like infrared and UV, which is great for the biosphere but not so great for astronomy. This is the primary reason most space-based telescopes specialize in non-visible light.

Single exposure of the Milky Way center over Mt. Locke at McDonald Observatory on a moonless night

Since the dawn of humanity, we have connected to the night sky, looking up in awe and ignited imagination by telling stories from the patterns we recognize in the stars, all in an attempt to grasp our understanding of our place in nature.

We still do.

Our curiosity remains fiercer than ever for what lies beyond our world. We continue to construct larger, more powerful telescopes, capable of seeing the furthest reaches of the cosmos. We continue to engineer more advanced spacecraft, which may one day take us beyond the Sun.

Regardless of where we go or what we do, the night sky will always be there for answers.

About Ryan Cantrell

A Public Programs Facilitator at the McDonald Observatory Visitor Center, Ryan Cantrell, has a keen passion for the night sky. He was fortunate to grow up in a relatively dark-sky area in Central Texas, which sparked a keen interest in stargazing. A passionate storyteller, Cantrell hosts a consortium of programs from constellation tours to off-site outreach events.