By Peter Covino
Lifestyles Editor

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...

Many a youngster and adult too, has wished upon a star.

But for many youngsters growing up in the 21st centry, sometimes that first star is getting harder and harder to find in the nighttime sky.

Even in communities like Harmony, where the stars and the necessary darkness to see them is celebrated at events such as the Dark Sky Festival each spring, it has become increasingly hard to see the stars. The Milky Way, so bright and vivid in the nighttime sky, is a complete impossibility in all but the most rural areas of the United States.

And that is what The City Dark, a new documentary on POV on PBS is all about.

Filmmaker Ian Chaney is from Waldoboro, Maine, a small rural town, where the Milky Way still dominates everything in the night time sky but the moon itself.

Chaney moved from his native Maine to New York City and discovered what many a city dweller has known for years: Where are the stars?

So Chaney began a three-year journey to make this film, talking to astronomers, ecologists and even cancer researchers, to find out what humanity has lost in the glare of city lights.

The City Dark has its national broadcast premiere during the 25th anniversary season of PBS’ POV series on Thursday, July 5 at 10 p.m. and will also stream on POV’s website  (http://www.pbs.org/pov/citydark/film_description.php) July 6-Aug. 5.

Chaney’s quest includes conversations with Irve Robbins, a Brooklyn-born astronomer running the last remaining observatory in the city, on Staten Island.

He also journeys to nearby Hackensack, N.J., where the owner of a huge warehouse filled with light bulbs of every shape and size explains how each successive generation of light bulb have increased exponentially in brightness.

Then there is Boy Scout Troop 718 who leave the city and for the first time actually see the Milky Way.

Famed astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, another native New Yorker, who describes his first encounter and love affair with the stars — at New York’s Hayden Planetarium.

Cheny also journeys to Sky Village in Arizona, a dark sky haven for astronomers as well as Mauna Kea, Hawaii, considered the best site for professional astronomy in the world.

Many birds and sea creatures need the dark to navigate. He also explores the possibility that humans need the dark as well.

For years, Suzanne Goldklang worked a night shift selling jewelry on television. Now a breast cancer patient, she is surprised to learn about epidemiologist Richard Stevens’ suggestion of a link between persistent exposure to light at night and increased breast cancer risk. Criminologist and former policeman Jon Shane goes on a nighttime visit to a Newark, N.J., park once riddled with crime; the installation of more lighting has made the it markedly safer.

“The City Dark took three years to make,” said filmmaker Cheney. “I began by speaking with astronomers, which pushed me toward the intangible idea of our spiritual and emotional connection to the stars and the science of the night. My hope is that the film will inspire people to look up more; to reconsider the way their houses, streets and cities are lit; and to realize that tiny changes in the way we light our world can make a big difference.”

The City Dark is a production of Wicked Delicate Films.

Upcoming on POV

July 12 — Guilty Pleasures by Julie Moggan.

Every four seconds a romance novel published by Harlequin or its British counterpart, Mills & Boon, is sold somewhere in the world. Julie Moggan’s Guilty Pleasures takes an amusing and touching look at this global phenomenon. Ironies abound in the contrasts between the everyday lives of the books’ readers and the fantasy worlds that offer them escape. Guilty Pleasures portrays five romance novel devotees who must, ultimately, find their dreams in the real world.

July 19 — The Light in Her Eyes by Julia Meltzer and Laura Nix.

A conservative Muslim preacher, founded a Qur’an school for girls in Damascus, Syria, 30 years ago. Every summer, her female students immerse themselves in a rigorous study of Islam. A surprising cultural shift is underway and women are claiming space within the mosque.