Mesmerizing starry night

Many people I know live in cities. We put electrical lighting everywhere in the cities to be able to see clearer. Many of us living in cities will know, totally out of artificial lighting is rare. When you switch off the light to go to bed, there are always street lamps, the litttle LED from your charging phone, your internet router, etc.. 

Yes, night is dark, but not as dark as we always think. There is light from the stars and the moon. It might be hard to believe for those who always live in cities and have never been far away from the light pollution, that, with this light from stars and the moon, we are actually able to see very clearly at night. While in the nature, while the sky is clear to let enough star light and moon light to shine through, we should just let the pupils slowly dilate and adapt to the surroundings. Torchlight is pretty much useless in this situation, because it can only let you see wherever you point it at. 

As I live in a city also, so witness a starry night sky is quite rare for me, simply because you can't see the sky clearly in the cities with the light pollution. In my country, Malaysia, it is even rarer. In Malaysia, apart of the light pollution, there are clouds, since Malaysia is a tropical country where it rains frequently. So until now, the only constellation i can recognize is the Orion's Belt and Orion. Whenever I can see the Orion's Belt in Malaysia, I would consider the weather to be very clear already. 

Witnessing a trully starry night, it happened to me only twice (may be more but that's all I can remember). The first time is when I went for a 3-days hike in the national park of Ecrins. We were lost on the second day and couldn't get to lower altitude and flat land to set up our tent before sunset. We managed to continue going down the mountain to just below the snowline and found ourselves a slope which was not so steep. We failed to put up our tent also due the rocky surface where we couldn't anchor our tent. In the end we just sneaked into our sleeping bags and tried to get some rest. Nobody in the team managed to sleep that night. It was just too cold and we were in constant fear of rolling off the slope. So we basically were awake throughout the starry and windy cold night. The sky was beautiful as the stars slowly moving across the sky, though we were shivering like hell. That night was a long long night. We were all praying for the sun to come out sooner, and finally the sun rose, we never felt so alive before. 

The second time that I remember is during a stay with a family in Thar desert. This time I had a comfortable bed, sleeping outdoor, with the starry sky as blanket. 

It is an amazing experience to see a starry sky. It makes me think about many deep questions in life and in the universe. 

National Geographic, Best Travel Pictures of 2011 Named : 
Star Sprawl, by Ben Canales