On the dirt track road on the way to Kilmory, it feels as though I’m at the centre of the universe.

The darkness is like nothing I have ever seen before. In the 20 minutes it has taken us to drive to this spot, my eyes have slowly adjusted, and with every passing second, the sky has exploded. It’s as though someone has reached into a bag of glitter and threw their hand to the wind. Hundreds, thousands, millions of tiny specks of twinkling light. The world, often so loud and bright, has dropped away, replaced by an unspoiled darkness. Here, in the heart of Scotland’s first and only Dark Sky Sanctuary, the night is something to be celebrated, protected, and truly experienced.

We’re on Rum National Nature Reserve - me, Coinneach, and Lesley, our reserve manager and good friend. Every month we wrap up warm, check the phase of the moon and head out to find out just how dark our sky is, armed with our sky quality meter and a flask of hot chocolate. The readings we take confirm what the naked eye can already see - the sky here on the Isle of Rum is special. And tonight, it is putting on a show.

I recently received a comment on TikTok that hasn’t quite left my mind. It read: “My........

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