The full title of the book is The wild dark: Finding the night sky in the age of light. Not sure where I heard of the book, but I checked it out from the JeffCo Libraries.
It is an interesting trip for the author and one of his friends to bike North out of Las Vegas, and they stop every night to view the night sky in a different Bortle zone. He also uses an SQM to determine how dark different places are on the journey. I know that the Bortle scale has its limitations, and it can change from night to night, but it is a good estimate when skies are clear.
The book started off with an editing error with two places saying “A little darker and you get hundreds of stars.” The first instance probably meant to say — a little darker and you get dozens of stars.
On page 19 – I learned that de Mairan figured out what circadian rhythm is.
On pages 59-60, he lends some credence to astrology so my scientific view of him goes down a notch.
Page 81 – There are indigenous peoples in Alaska and other parts of the Arctic that see a very large constellation called Yahdii.
Page 91-92 – The January 17, 1994 Northridge, CA earthquake. He noted how it took out power in the area. He said that power was disrupted in other states, too, and even up into Canada. Then, he said that people were calling emergency centers (and other news outlets) about a giant silvery cloud. He said that it was the first time people were seeing zodiacal light, but I would guess that the Milky Way would be the cause for alarm most likely.
Page 97 – Basin and Range Dark Sky Cooperative
Page 108 – The author talks about how he can eat most anything found in the wild, such as worms, insects, rackrabbit, little crabs (and other gelatinous creatures), and chuparosa flowers. That last plant had caused him to get sick. So, maybe you shouldn’t always eat found plants or whatnot.
Page 121 – He meets up with Mark Bailey.
Page 130 – Some people in the Hopi Native American tribe did not like the fact that people went to the Moon. Should people “be allowed to touch these sacred bodies in space?” I think yes, people should be allowed to explore space in an ethical way. We do not want to send bacteria to other water-filled moons such as Europa or Enceladus.
Page 150 – The Webb Space Telescope was used to find that there were 540 (or more) free floating planets in and around the Orion Nebula? The research was posted to the arXiv, but it isn’t in a journal yet.
Page 165 – He mentions that his county commissioner was Kris Holstrom, who was a commissioner in San Miguel County, Colorado. Looks like he lives in Norwood, CO.
Page 169 – The City art installation in Nevada.
The book finishes with Craig and his buddy meeting up with a bunch of friends in a supposedly Bortle 1 zone in the middle of Nevada. It would have been nice to see what path they took on the way there, and where exactly they all met at the end. But, since they found some indigenous artwork on the way there (pages 145-146), they might not want to reveal where they found it. Or, they could have told some native art experts where it was so that it could be protected and preserved.
This is another good overview of the book.