According to John Barentine, the program manager for the Arizona-based International Dark Skies Association, of the five designations the organization has, reserve is the most difficult to land.

The craggy Sawtooth Mountains make for stunning views in the daytime and provide a buffer from light pollution at night. Barentine says the people in this remote corner of Idaho reached out to him.
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“They told me that they view the nighttime darkness and, you know, the ability to see the Milky Way, as something that is definitive of their part of the state and their part of the country.”

The peak of the Perseid meteor shower is this weekend, and tonight and Saturday night are the best times to watch. Observers can expect to see at least 80 meteors an hour streak across the sky.

But not in New York City. And you can thank light pollution for that.

​To better understand light pollution, or excessive artificial light sent into the night sky, we turned to John Barentine, an astronomer and the program manager at the International Dark-Sky Association, an organization working to reduce light-polluted skies.