A Star Is Born: Pa Park is One of Best in World for Night Skies

No sooner had the sun set than a mass of white, like exploding clouds, rose over the evergreen trees. They weren’t clouds, of course, but stars, gas and space dust that collectively appear as translucent white to our eyes. Think 400 billion stars or so.

Even though temperatures had fallen into the 20s, about 100 people, many of them families, made their way into the Night Sky Public Viewing Area, fashioned from the old unpaved runway. They sat in portable chairs cocooned in blankets or lay flat on the ground wrapped in sleeping bags. All had their eyes toward the sky.

Shouts of glee perfo...