Bismarck Daily Tribune

Various attempts have been made to estimate the light of stars. In the northern hemisphere Argelander has registered 324,000 stars down to the nine and one-half magnitude, with the aid of the best photometric data. Agnes M. Clerk's "System of the Stars" gives the sum of the light of these northern stars as equivalent to 1,440 of full moonlight, and the total light of all stars similarly enumerated in both hemispheres to the number of about 900,000 is roughly placed at 1,180 of the lunar brightness. The scattered light of still fainter celestial bodies is difficult to evaluate. By a photographic method Sir William Abney in 1896 rated the total starlight of both hemispheres as 1,100 of full moonlight, and Professor Newcomb in 1901 from visual observations of diffused sky radiance fixed the light power of all stars at just 128 times that of Capella or 1.89 of the light of the full moon.

It is not certain, however, that the sky would be totally dark if all stars were blotted out. Certain processes make the upper atmosphere strongly luminous at times, and one never can be sure that this light is absent.