"The City Dark" Lights Up the Night

by Rachel Kaufman —Picture copyright Wicked Delicate Films You are likely not reading this blog from Natural Bridges National Monument, the world's first international dark-sky park. Nor are you probably reading from Arizona Sky Village, one of the darkest places...

by Rachel Kaufman

—Picture copyright Wicked Delicate Films

You are likely not reading this blog from Natural Bridges National Monument, the world's first international dark-sky park. Nor are you probably reading from Arizona Sky Village, one of the darkest places in the continental U.S.

In fact, statistics say that you're reading this blog from a city.

And that means you can't see nearly as many stars as your ancestors could. In fact, in some places the number of stars visible in the night sky is in the single digits.

Filmmaker Ian Cheney (of King Corn fame) grew up spending his summers in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he took pictures of stars with a homemade telescope.

Not so much in New York City, where he now lives.

In an attempt to learn what we might be missing when light pollution erases our starry skies, he's made a new documentary film called The City Dark, which premiered last week at ...