The biggest screen stars - Telegraph In his poem that begins "Look at the stars!," Gerard Manley Hopkins speaks of the night sky as "grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies." Hopkins, that sharpest of observers, had seen something of the stars, in rural Lancashire and Wales. Today, what with light pollution in cities and cloudy skies, we often live as if the stars did not exist. But, abroad, on holiday, we suddenly see them and are astonished. How bright and close and packed together they seem. No wonder every great civilisation, from Babylon to Athens, studied their motions with care. The new ignorance of the night sky is beginning to give way to a newer curiosity. Dark skies, free from light pollution, are proving a tourist attraction. In 2009, Britain's first "Dark Sky Park" was declared in Galloway. Exmoor is soon to have its own. Both locations benefit from more cloudless nights than other dark regions, such as the Scottish Highlands. North Norfolk is another favoured post. But even in London and suchlike conurbations, the stars do make sudden, exhilarating appearances. This week, between the storm fronts, the blue-white of bright Venus, the warmer orange of Mars and the crooked belt of Orion have glittered in the chill dark over the rooftops. In today's Weekend section, Sir Patrick Moore and Adrian Berry explain some of the highlights of January's sky. To view it, you need no licence - yet.