Starry Skies South

Christina Rogers, RNC-NIC, BS Biology

When I was a teenager, after graduating high school, my friend and I rented a car to drive up the coast of California. He was the nervous type, so I was the one driving at night and when there were a lot of semi trucks driving by he asked me to pull over for a little bit so he could relax for a minute. I pulled over and stepped out of the car. Looking up I for the first time saw the Milky Way with my own eyes, shooting stars were going everywhere, it was unreal. I started crying, I could not believe this was how it really looked, I thought it was just a movie or an on TV make believe sky. I have been trying to recreate that moment ever since. My main interest in promoting dark sky though is the effects that it has on our wellbeing as well as the environment around us. As a nurse I know the effects that light pollution has on our population and as a wildlife biologist I understand that disrupting natural light effects ecosystems and all that live with in them.