St Davids named as best place in the UK to stargaze

St Davids – the UK’s smallest city – has been named as the ultimate destination for stargazing due to it having the clearest view in the UK.

This comes from BestGamblingSites.com who analysed light pollution data to find the best and worst places to stargaze this Global Astronomy Month (April).

Stargazing and a lack of seeing stars can have an impact on brain health according to James Roy, brain health expert at Brainworks Neurotherapy.

He said: “As humans, we are biologically inclined to be awake during the day and asleep at night.

"Daylight is the natural regulator of our circadian rhythms, so the more light we introduce into our night-time skies, the harder it is for our bodies to determine what time it actually is.

“Even low levels of artificial light intensity at night have been found to suppress melatonin production, our sleep hormone which induces drowsiness, making it harder for us to fall asleep. This can lead to insomnia which will cause tiredness, fatigue and poor mental health.

“On a brain level, the ‘out of sync’ daylight hours and sleep disruption weaken the power of our all-important frontal lobes.

"A weakening of our frontal brain activity impairs memory, decision making and our ability to regulate our emotional reactions.”

St Davids came in top with a star visibility score of 74.4 out of 100. It is also the only Welsh area to be included in the top 15 places in the UK for stargazing.

The star visibility score was calculated by analysing the Bortle scale classification system which uses astronomical observations to measure light pollution, the sky quality meter which gives reading on the luminance of the night sky and sky brightness which measures the sky brightness against natural brightness.

The study found that St Davids has a Bortle scale of 3 (a scale classification of 1 is best for stargazing, with 9 being the worst) and the lowest level of light pollution of all 82 cities analysed, which makes it the best place to see stars.