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A year and a half ago my brother and I began a search for a dark sky country property to escape to from the overcrowded Tampa Bay area when I retire in 4 years and to use for our monthly new moon star gazing outings.

We used the world wide Light Pollution Map available on the internet as a tool for the property search. Below is a captured image from that map locating the St. Petersburg Astronomy Club's dark sky site in Withlacoochee River park near Dade City, our buddy Matt Terry's 5 acre site near Lake Panasofkee and our 2.24 acre site on the eastern edge of the Gulf Hammock.

Today I was perusing the Light pollution Map and noticed a large node of light in North Dakota that appeared to defy logic.
The node of light is larger than Chicago. There are no large cities anywhere near.

A closer zoom reveals this area of light is centered in the bend of a large river.

A far zoom on Google Earth reveals nothing that could be the source of this light.

A medium zoom of the area begins to reveal lots of small clearings:

A close zoom of some of the clearings reveals what appear to be rocket launch sites.

Military base?

I'm presuming this area is where we have our ICBMs deployed and the entire region of the state is lit up like daylight all night long......

ND has a very large energy production industry. Could that be the source?

Any forumites who hail from these parts that could clue us all in?

From my point of view night time security is the only reason anything gets lit up this brightly.

I've been camping in that area in 2014. It was utterly black at night. My daughter went backpacking there last June. Same result.

I believe that's an anomaly or error on that map. It's not lit up like that at night in western North Dakota.

Hans - you can clearly see the shadow of an oil ground pump in your picture on the right. Fracking site....

Military Bases tended to be cropped out in Google, so probably not silos.

It seems, it already goes like that for years

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I've been camping in that area in 2014. It was utterly black at night. My daughter went backpacking there last June. Same result.

I believe that's an anomaly or error on that map. It's not lit up like that at night in western North Dakota.

This seems like the most reasonable explanation.

2013

A Mysterious Patch Of Light Shows Up In The North Dakota Dark

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2 ... akota-dark

ORIGINAL: inqistor

Military Bases tended to be cropped out in Google, so probably not silos.

It seems, it already goes like that for years

Not All. MacDill and CentCom in all its glory:

2019
Night Lights in North Dakota

https://eros.usgs.gov/image-gallery/ima ... rth-dakota

Oil shale fracking. The methane being vented is not always saved as it is too far from a pipeline and it may also be contaminated with a little oil. So the gas is burned. There may also be some regular oil pumping there as well.

Also, look at the Northeastern tip of Minnesota as well as the very north central part of the state. Mostly dark except where a few cities along the border an a strip south of the dark area. That should be a nice place to see the Northern Lights when they are showing and the sky is clear. Also, I don't think that they get hurricanes there nor even himmacanes there. I believe that there is quite a bit of water in the area so people won't get too thirsty.

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

2013

A Mysterious Patch Of Light Shows Up In The North Dakota Dark

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2 ... akota-dark

Great article. Thanks for the link.

Hans, those are oil production facilities. Likely they're flaring gas instead of compressing it for pipeline shipment.