The Milky Way

5/8/2019 ☼ Travel

Here I am in inland Maine, on the eastern shore of Rangeley Lake. This part of the state is closer to New Hampshire and Vermont than it is to the seacoast where most of Maine’s population lives. The tiny towns here are not wealthy; their populations decline with every passing year. By night, inland Maine is mostly dark.

After the sun finally falls below the horizon, only the smallest trace of anthropogenic light makes it over the rise that separates the lakeshore from the nearby town. Tonight is cloudless. The sky overhead is a nearly black field scattered with bright points; behind them, a barely visible band stretches from horizon to horizon.