One of the nicest things about night shift on McInnes Island lighthouse was observing the sky on a clear night. It was always the same, and always different.

The same stars were always there, but the moon waxed and waned, comets streaked across at intervals, sometimes an airplane’s navigation lights blinked in the south, or sometimes the Northern Lights flashed in the north. Below are some more shots.

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One of the problems with seeing such sights in the city is the city lights, often called light pollution. The graphic below ill show you what is seen and not seen as light pollution decreases.

I must confess, that is what the night sky looks like at night from a lighthouse, but not having a photo from my experiences on McInnes lighthouse as my camera was too amateurish for such detail, I added the lighthouse silhouette to the photos from the gallery below. Are the photos below fantastic or not?

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But, when looking at the full-sized photo at the top, turn off your lights and imagine what it was like. Sometimes we would take a foam mat and lay down on the helicopter pad and just watch the night sky. It was fascinating. For meteor showers and comets it was unbeatable. Continue reading A Lighthouse at Night →