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I think the first time I was in a place which didn't have too much light pollution was when my parents took all three of their kids on a car trip to California.

This was a long time ago, I have to say.

But when we got to the west, places like, you know, Arizona or Nevada,

when you were outside of the cities, the sky was very dark.

And you'd get out and you'd look up at the sky and my god you could see the Milky Way

and seeing the Milky Way was something that I hadn't been able to do for most of my life.

It's really impressive. It's worth the trip. Seeing, you know, thousands of stars. You can see

something like 3,000 stars with your naked eye if there's a dark sky. I mean, just being exposed

to all that. I mean, that's an experience that you're never going to get, you know, living in Manhattan.

Well, I knew my chances were bad in Manhattan to see any starlight, so I tried outside of my apartment in Brooklyn instead. There is plenty of light.

I see streetlights, stoplights, store lights, string lights, bar lights, bike lights, car lights, and

cell phone light. One store has this strobing light outside, flashing red, green, and blue.

It's part of the reason we have blackout curtains. But as I look up,

I do have to unfortunately admit that there is not a single star in the sky. When it comes to

true darkness here in the city, we just never really have it. Unlike our assistant producer, Brian Edwards, who is hemmed in by the lights, I am about 30 miles from the lights of any big city.

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