Stars and the Night Sky

I have a question for those of you who have been on world cruises- seeing that the ship cruises throughout the world on the open sea and oceans, what are the night skies like? Can you see lots and lots of stars since there are no cities around? Or does the ship's lights block the views?

I've been on a number of cruises (not around the world) and never have been able to see a lot of stars out at night.

Lots of world cruises will sail in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This gives you a variety of star formations. Last year I also had the opportunity to see a full lunar eclipse in the Caribbean.

Don

Sometimes the ship's lights block star gazing but if you go up as far as you can then find a good observation location, you can minimize the 'glare'. Had 1 cruise where people asked if the very top lights on the top deck could be turned off and the captain obliged for a period of time. It was awesome as we were in the southern hemisphere and a passenger knew what we were looking at as it is very different. One 1 WC, we have also had astronomy lecturers on board who gave a talk in the lounge during the day, then another up on the top deck after dark. Originally they were to talk about the eclipse but they were talked into additional lectures.

The stars were amazing and I tried to sit out on the balcony at least a few minutes every night before bed just to stare at them and the ocean. I usually found it easier to see the stars from the balcony than on a public deck because of the lights on the deck.

Just like "take us away", we had an astronomer on one of the segments of the world cruise who gave a few lectures and gave us a guided tour of the stars one night when we were in the southern hemisphere (deck lights turned off).

If you have an iPad there is a great app called Star Chart that was recommended to me. You hold the iPad up and it tells you what you are seeing in the sky.

On this years World Cruise on board Crystal Serenity we had a former Astronaut as one of the lecturers. On a couple of different nights/early mornings there was an opportunity to look at the skies with him and one of the engineering officers. The lights were turned off and it was amazing all we saw including the satellite carrying the Hubble Telescope, the International Space Station and Jupiter.

Keith