A county that is rarely in the news gets the star treatment from the Old Grey Lady. Kudos to Potter County.

GLIMMERING like a sequined showgirl and hovering in the Western sky near the setting sun, Venus appeared first, the warm-up act for what would become a cavalcade of, literally, thousands of real stars. Within an hour after sunset that June evening, Jupiter took a bow, then Saturn. Slowly, almost magically, constellations began to glint through the inky darkness.

On a good night for stargazing at Cherry Springs State Park, in north central Pennsylvania, the Milky Way is a speckled wash across the sky. On a perfect night, particularly during a new moon, the Milky Way is so bright it casts shadows. Stargazers hold out their hands and look at the shadows on the ground in awe.

“You get kind of overwhelmed at how many stars are actually visible,” said Stanley Nawrocki, a local self-taught astronomer whom his friends and neighbors call Stash.

The observation field at Cherry Springs, in remote Potter County, a 275-mile drive from New York City, has become a magnet in recent years for passionate astronomers, as well as for people who just want to tilt their heads back and ponder the vast majesty of the universe. Spotting the Big Dipper, Sagittarius and Cassiopeia among 10,000 stars is a delight in itself.