I will never forget the first night we spent in the Andes. It was my first ever time seeing the southern hemisphere sky at night without any light pollution at all. It was.. amazing. It's such a weird sensation to see completely different stars than the ones you are used to.. like.. completely different. It must be a subconscious thing of some sort, because I don't exactly study the stars. I couldn't tell you what stars are where in the northern hemisphere sky, if you put me in a room and asked me to draw out the night sky. I could draw a couple constellations but that's it. I don't have the sky memorized in any way.. Yet when I looked at the sky there on that day in Peru, I got this very strange sensation, almost like I was on another planet. My body and mind knew something was VERY different. Such an odd sensation. We all exited our tents and looked up and a couple people loaded up night sky apps on their phones to figure out exactly what we were looking at, which stars, etc.
It was such a beautiful sight, so many stars visible all over the place, and the milky way was a very distinct band running across the sky as well. It really made you appreciate what the Incas and other indigenous tribes in South America saw when they looked up, and why they based so much of their mythology on the sky and the movements of the stars.
A similar memory I have was when we camped in Algonquin Park, years ago now (before my trip to Peru), which is very in the middle of nowhere (in Canada, northern hemisphere). Zero light pollution. The stars were magnificent. Did the fact that some of us consumed magic mushrooms help? Yes, but the point is that you just don't get views of the stars like that in any city, and not even if you drive to the outskirts. Seeing the stars with zero light pollution is amazing.. and that first night in the mountains in Peru.. WOW.. It was that sensation of seeing the stars like that.. all over the sky.. and them being so different. I can't describe the sensation I felt at all, but will never forget it.
My first time seeing the night sky with zero light pollution was when we went camping in the Rockies. Unfortunately it was in the fall (Thanksgiving weekend in October), and nights are cold in the mountains in the fall, so I couldn't stay outside as long as I would otherwise (should have brought a winter coat with me).
I wasn't even 10 at the time, but had already been an avid stargazer for several years. I remember looking up at the stars and feeling completely overwhelmed. As in sensory overload. There's so much you just don't see from the city, or even from the acreage where I grew up, since it wasn't far from the main highway in Alberta, on the outskirts of Red Deer, and there was a cluster of gas stations, restaurants, and motels not far away. So we did get a bit of light and noise pollution from that, even in the '60s.
My dad helped me sort things out, though (he went hunting every year, so this was a completely normal experience for him). I could finally pick out the Big Dipper and a couple of other constellations. If you know which way to look and it's the right time of night/morning, you can see Orion at that time of year (can actually see it in the very early morning in early fall, so it's not only a winter constellation; it just doesn't rise in the same place you'd normally expect if you were looking for it at night, and there's not much time to see it before sunrise).
@warpus, since you do so much hiking and camping, you're probably more familiar with the Northern Hemisphere constellations than you give yourself credit for. It's something people notice, it's something most kids will have heard of at some point in school, if the school teaches any astronomy at all in science classes (sadly not many do this anymore). And even if you didn't learn it in school, there are references in stories people read, it gets mentioned on TV, you might overhear people talking about it, or you may have seen the constellations fairly often, but just didn't connect the names with them. There's a really useful trick to navigating the northern hemisphere sky, using the stars in the Big Dipper - especially useful when you want to figure out which way is north.
My understanding is that the Southern hemisphere doesn't currently have a pole star. If I could, I'd like to see Antares. I know that we're supposed to be able to see it, as the zodiac constellations are visible in both hemispheres. But I'm just far enough north, and it's built up enough around here, that for me there's no southern horizon. So I can easily follow the Star Hustler's directions (astronomer Jack Horkheimer had a short little astronomy bit on PBS where he'd talk about stargazing) of following the stars in the Dipper's handle to "Arc to Arcturus" but "speed on to Spica" was a bit harder due to latitude and lack of horizon and light pollution, and I never could find Antares (in the constellation of Scorpio).
Antares is one of the stars that was mentioned in Star Trek, as in Beta Antares IV, where Kirk claimed that the people play Fizzbin. The real Antares is a red supergiant that's going to blow up as a supernova some day (might have already and the light from that hasn't reached us yet). So people should enjoy looking at all those bright stars we see. Many of them are the type that will end as supernovae and some day they won't be there anymore.
There was an astronomy walk at Kerry Wood Nature Centre (wildlife sanctuary interpretive centre near my home in the '80s), and I figured I might as well go, since it was a warm November night. I'd started working in the bookstore there, and though they had a lot of programs involving birds and other wildlife, they didn't have anything regular planned for astronomy.
Quite a few of the people who turned up were families with elementary-age kids. As I recall, Mars was at its closest point to us at the time, and very easy to see (yes, it does look red), so kids were curious about that. I guess their teachers probably mentioned it, so they wanted to see Mars. One kid asked his dad where it was, and the dad said he didn't know. I'd spotted it, so I figured why not tell them - and pointed it out. I pointed out a couple of other red things (some stars are red; you can especially tell that with Betelgeuse in Orion) and explained how to tell the difference between stars and planets.
Well, I realized later that I'd ended up giving an impromptu astronomy talk for about 20 minutes. People started asking questions about how to find this or that, or what was the story about some constellation we were looking at. It was fun.
The following summer I went out there again with a couple of friends, on August 12, to watch the Perseid meteor shower. I came prepared that time, with my smaller telescope, a book of star maps, and a flashlight with red cellophane over it so we could look stuff up in the book and not lose our night vision.
Later on, the city built a road connecting north Red Deer to the newer northeast subdivisions and of course they put street lights in. It completely ruined stargazing in the sanctuary. There's far too much light pollution there now to see more than a small fraction of what we could see before.
I had a very similar experience too, some years ago. Went hiking, and at night the lights went off at the place we were staying. Everything was pitch-black, someone managed to get to the door and open it, we stumbled out into the open. Up in the sky was a most beautiful scene: an entire band of the Milky Way spanning the sky. We were all city-kids, from one of the world's most polluted cities too, and we were awestruck, spending more than an hour just looking up at the sky, even after the lights had come back on.
Since then I've always made it a point to look up at the night sky whenever we go the mountains, but I've never seen the Milky Way since. And if the lights hadn't gone out that night, I wouldn't have seen it then.
I've never seen the Milky Way like that. I envy you two.
