Check out the ISS transits over your area.
It will appear as the brightest object moving across the sky for a duration of 5 minutes.

I am at the south of France on the Mediterranean coast and have had some great views of the ISS this past week.

 

Dark Sky areas

I have lived for years where the sky looks like your picture. In one place you could not see a house to the horizon in any direction but at night you could see four pole yard lights miles away. When that number moved to six my dad was upset. He wanted to move to where there were less people. (we did)

After school, wife and I moved to what we called "the city". One of the workers moved from New York and called it "the country". We were unhappy because we could only see a hand full of stars. The New Yorker was excited because she had never seen a star before.

I mis laying on a haystack and watching stars.

 

As someone that grew up in the suburbs of a large city and seldom got far enough away from the light pollution, even when I was in the mountains -- and, when I was, I was always either too near a campfire or too exhausted to pay attention -- I could never understand why ancient civilizations made such a big deal about the night sky and the stars and such. Yeah, I could certainly understand some people being fascinated from an intellectual curiosity standpoint, but I couldn't understand how entire civilizations seemed to be driven by it. Then, one night, I was far out in the mountains and the night sky was cloudless and moonless and I had been talked into hiking up to the saddle above the camp and sleeping under the stars. When I laid down, the Milky Way was laid out in front of me for the first (and only) time in my life and my first thought was -- how could any civilization see that every night and not be dominated by its impact?

 

Some of those dots of light are someone's Sun.
Some of those dots of light are a galaxy, with 500 billions suns.
Some of those dots of light are clusters of galaxies.

 

some of those dots are planets in our own solar system

 

And lots of the dots are those pesky Starlink satellites ...

 

One of the things I enjoyed during Naval Shipyard seat rivals on war ships was going outside on deck on deck at night. With the exception of aircraft carriers, most naval ships are nearly dark, the only lights displayed being the required navigation lights, and all hatches having light traps so no light is displayed even when open.

As Carl Sagan said, on a clear night at sea, you could see "billions and billions of stars". But if you went outside in the dark, you had to plan on being outside 20 minutes or more – it took that long for your eyes to adjust to the dark enough to find your way back inside.

I regret in all my nights at sea, I never did see "the green flash" just as the sun sinks below the horizon.

 

One of the things I enjoyed during Naval Shipyard seat rivals on war ships was going outside on deck on deck at night. With the exception of aircraft carriers, most naval ships are nearly dark, the only lights displayed being the required navigation lights, and all hatches having light traps so no light is displayed even when open.

As Carl Sagan said, on a clear night at sea, you could see "billions and billions of stars". But if you went outside in the dark, you had to plan on being outside 20 minutes or more – it took that long for your eyes to adjust to the dark enough to find your way back inside.

I regret in all my nights at sea, I never did see "the green flash" just as the sun sinks below the horizon.

The coolest thing was bitch black skies and the glowing sea as the ship sailed on the water. We were in the I/O during dead calm seas and dark skies. The star lit sky reflected off of the sea creating the effect of floating in space with no horizon.
Trippy as hell while up on the signal bridge with the"Skivvy Wavers" .



The "green flash" happened just about week when I was stationed in the Keys during the 70's.

 

We don't see the milky way anymore here on the coast. Too many people moving in that just have to put up "Night Lights" outside. But, coming back in at night from offshore you can tell where town is from the glow on the horizon instead of trying to steer on a compass bearing. No autosteer on my small boat although my GPS has the output for one.

 

I've been lucky to see the green flash several times now, once on a boat but mostly from shore. I don't think they're all that rare but you have to be in the right place and very alert at exactly the right time. Just hanging out at the beach at sunset won't do it. You need to stare and you'll literally miss it if you blink at the wrong moment. It's truly just a flash and is over in far less than one second. Sometimes more obvious than others. Every time I've seen one, other people near me cheered and so I know it wasn't just me imagining it!

There's a Dark Park in Door County on Wisconsin's "thumb" into Lake Michigan. An even better one is in Great Basin National Park in Nevada. I highly recommend seeking these areas out. Takes me back to being a kid laying the dewy grass and staring up in awe at the Milky Way.

 

One of the things I enjoyed during Naval Shipyard seat rivals on war ships was going outside on deck on deck at night. With the exception of aircraft carriers, most naval ships are nearly dark, the only lights displayed being the required navigation lights, and all hatches having light traps so no light is displayed even when open.

As Carl Sagan said, on a clear night at sea, you could see "billions and billions of stars". But if you went outside in the dark, you had to plan on being outside 20 minutes or more – it took that long for your eyes to adjust to the dark enough to find your way back inside.

I regret in all my nights at sea, I never did see "the green flash" just as the sun sinks below the horizon.

Wow, I guess you really can't get less light pollution than out in the middle of the ocean!

 

There's a small, picturesque town at about a 3 hour drive from where I live called "Real de Catorce". The place looks like it's been frozen in time in the Mexico of the 1910's and it's a popular tourist destination among the locals. And when the locals like a place, you can be sure you're seeing the real, authentic thing.
Also interesting to note is that some of the small shops and restaurants there are owned by retired hippie europans that fell in love with the place when they visited it and decided to stay and make a living there.

Anyway, the town lies high up the mountains. At 2700 meters to be precise, and its skies are clean and transparent and it's far enough from the closest city to display the most spectacular night sky I've ever seen.

Give yourselves a gift and find a place in some mountains and far from city lights ... it'll be an unforgettable experience I assure you.

 

I'm in Eastern Arizona, right by the Superstition Mountains and Apache Trail. So west of here is downtown Phoenix but looking north and east there is a huge expanse of unoccupied wilderness, very few people and the sky in that direction is pretty damn dark at night.



As a kid I was an avid sky watcher, I had my little constellations book and a pair of basic 8x30 binocs but it was still great fun. This was the 1970s when Star Trek was on TV so I was really drawn to the sky.

For those interested I recently bought some truly excellent binocs: Oberwerk 20x80 Explore.

I've had astronomy binocs quite a few times over the years and can tell you that Oberwerk are about as good as you can get, that particular model is superb for the price.

I got these from Amazon, and when I unpacked and looked around the mountains here, it was obvious the collimation was off.

So I sent an email to Oberwerk and explained the situation, I got a reply an hour later asking my address and they sent a replacement by priority mail and apologized, I just had to send the originals back with the prepaid packing slip.

The new ones arrived and they were astonishingly well aligned, the best I've ever seen from any binocs, this is a US firm and has grown to earn a huge respect from amateur astronomers (the owner was once a software/hardware engineer too incidentally)

 

I'm in Eastern Arizona, right by the Superstition Mountains and Apache Trail. So west of here is downtown Phoenix but looking north and east there is a huge expanse of unoccupied wilderness, very few people and the sky in that direction is pretty damn dark at night.

As a kid I was an avid sky watcher, I had my little constellations book and a pair of basic 8x30 binocs but it was still great fun. This was the 1970s when Star Trek was on TV so I was really drawn to the sky.

For those interested I recently bought some truly excellent binocs: Oberwerk 20x80 Explore.

I've had astronomy binocs quite a few times over the years and can tell you that Oberwerk are about as good as you can get, that particular model is superb for the price.

I got these from Amazon, and when I unpacked and looked around the mountains here, it was obvious the collimation was off.

So I sent an email to Oberwerk and explained the situation, I got a reply an hour later asking my address and they sent a replacement by priority mail and apologized, I just had to send the originals back with the prepaid packing slip.

The new ones arrived and they were astonishingly well aligned, the best I've ever seen from any binocs, this is a US firm and has grown to earn a huge respect from amateur astronomers.

Those binocs look beautiful. But their tripod costs just as much!

 

Near the old air-field (on radar rd) near Tonopah NV as it's turning dark

If you're in Vegas, take the short drive one night.
https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/TonopahNVkey.html?1

 

Those binocs look beautiful. But their tripod costs just as much!

I don't even have a tripod, but perhaps should think about it, fact is I hardly use them much, its been summer so even at night its been close to 100F and just not conducive to sky watching, but its cooling a lot recently.

 

A good set really makes the viewing easy.

 

Here's a bit of info on Oberwerk's collimation process:

 

Here's a bit of info on Oberwerk's collimation process:

I wonder if they refurbished the ones you returned ...