For amateur astronomers, 'star parties' are the antidote to light-polluted skies
Each year in northern Pennsylvania, hundreds of stargazers attend gatherings under increasingly rare dark skies to look for faint galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
COUDERSPORT, Pa. — Up a winding road that cuts through the Allegheny Plateau, hundreds of amateur astronomers in campers and pickups stream into northern Pennsylvania each spring and summer in search of one thing: stars.
It's something they can't get enough of in the halo of light pollution that surrounds most cities. By contrast, Cherry Springs State Park, located about 135 miles northwest of Wilkes-Barre, is one of the very few truly dark sky sites in the entire eastern United States.
Twice a year, in June and September, — dim and distant galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
