When you travel, do you ever look at the night sky?

Few people in this part of the world, excluding the Japanese, have seen the Northern Lights.

Have a look at:
< http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/ … ra-videos/ >.

That she cannot see the stars is probably due to the city lights, or "light pollution" among experts. People who live in the city rarely have a chance to see the less bright stars.

You don't see the same stars in Canada as you see in Vietnam due to different latitude coordinates, longitude plays no difference. In Vietnam, it is difficult to see constellation like the Big Bear (Ursa Major) because it is down at the horizon while in places like Japan, Canada, it hangs high on the night sky.

That is also why you see the Southern cross constellation in the New Zealand flag. They see it very clearly down there. In Vietnam, it is also visible but down to the horizon. In Scandinavia, it is impossible to see.

There is a cool "augmented reality"  app in Iphone call "Star walk" which uses the built-in GPS, compass and gyroscope to show you in real time the constellations. You hold the iphone toward the night sky and the app shows you in real-time the names and drawing of that constellation the phone is point at. Great for learning about the stars. They have it in Android as well, but I have not used the Android version.

Northern light, aurora borealis, is difficult to spot since it is visible only with increased solar activity, even then only in the dark at high latitude.

Even the Japanese don't see it often, if at all. They pay big bucks to go to places like Northern Finland, Norway in the wintertime to see it.