What does Dark Sky mean to you?

[Paul-F]

Some nights in my back garden I can look up at the sky where the constellations are difficult to make out and be a bit disorientated due to the sheer number of stars that are visible and it takes me a short while to figure it out, on nights like that Andromeda for example is easily visible with direct vision as a fairly bright object as is the brightness of the milky Way and the constellations blend in with surrounding stars. This is occasionally from out in my back garden at say 2am when the neighbours have all their lights off and the reflectivity of the local atmosphere is at a minimum ... when fully dark adapted this is an amazing sight.

Other nights the constellations are obvious as the sky is not as dark as it can be and fainter stars do not show to throw me off !

What would you consider a dark sky and do you look for certain stars/features to 'measure' the darkness for yourself? I have none specifically but sort of know when conditions are on the 'wow' end of the scale!