Visitors get to participate in a true dark sky experience. You can find out much more about Chaco s Night Sky Initiative by logging onto the web site noted below and clicking on the Chaco button. We were in the heart of Egypt s greatest necropolis and that was the scariest dark I have yet experienced. The night sky is never that black, for stars, planets, and even the sky itself give off sufficient quantities of light for the fully dark adapted eye to discern easily a myriad of details on the ground. Let s not even consider what the moon can do or the constant reminder of orange from the urban sky glow which domes our cities.
Astronomers say the darkest skies in the world occur in the Australian Outback.
There the Milky Way is so brilliant that it can cast very diffuse shadows on the ground. In New Mexico, where I do a lot of my observing in the summer, I have regularly noticed shadows being cast by the planet Venus. I had read about Jupiter being able to accomplish this same feat. And there was my shadow plainly visible on the ground pointing directly away from Jupiter. The nights are getting longer.