I should probably start with a confession for someone who writes about the night sky almost every day: until recently, I had never actually seen the Milky Way properly. Not as a bright, structured band stretching across the sky. Not in a way that made me stop and stare.
I knew my home skies in central England were light-polluted. I also thought I had experienced reasonably dark skies before, during trips away from city lights, where a few extra stars were visible.
