You check the light-pollution map the way other people check the weather. You know the exact junction where the orange glow finally drops off the mirror, and you know it's about an hour from your front door. DARK SKY CHASER arches in engraved capitals across a star-atlas plate, and along the ruled footline beneath it the whole plan is stated as plainly as a chart caption: ONE HOUR TO DARK SKY. Inside the plate's ring stands Ursa Major, drawn as a solid heraldic charge the way a 17th-century atlas would engrave it, with the seven stars of the Plough joined star to star on the bear's body. The figure the ancients drew and the asterism you actually navigate by, in one image.
The design wraps both sides, so the chart reads the same whichever hand picks it up.
For the person who drives out, and for whoever's buying for the stargazer who disappears for a night with the telescope and only says "clear skies." This is the one.
