A someone who spent considerable amount of time in his youth at dark sites observing with the naked eye, those pictures are not off by that much.  To be fair, these are obviously pictures taken in very dry areas where there is no haze.  But I have seen similar scenes with the naked eye in the winter before.  I&#x27;m lucky enough to live in the countryside near the ocean and even though there is a fair amount of light pollution, in the winter I can go down to the beach and see the milky way in all its glory by looking out to sea.  People really don&#x27;t understand what they are missing. :-(