Stargazing - At One with the Universe: Bonna L. Nelson

Stargazing At One with the Universe

by Bonna L. Nelson

The Cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the Universe to know itself. ~ Carl Sagan

Coyotes were howling eerily near the edge of the farm field as the sun set in shades of amber, sky blue and rose. Venus, Jupiter and Saturn sparkled like a row of diamonds as the sky darkened. I shivered and wrapped my blanket tighter around me as protection against the chill 40-degree air at the 2,200-foot elevation. The glorious cloudy stream of the Milky Way eventually emerged from the blackness of the night, encompassing and surrounded by glittering flashes from stars, constellations and galaxies. The universe was before us. All of space, time and their contents, all forms of matter and energy, planets, stars, moons, comets, asteroids, our solar system,

where our life began from stardust.

What feelings did I have, besides feeling very, very cold? Amazed and humbled, fascinated and transported, confused and insignificant, privileged and thankful, a dream come true, at one with the universe. Stargazing puts life’s travails and challenges into perspective. Watching and learning about the dark sky and its inhabitants brought me a sense of wonder, peace and tranquility.

Bettymaya Foott, an astrophotographer and the director of the International Dark-Sky Association, stated that “the night sky unites us all as humans.” That revelation makes me wish that we could organize quarterly international night sky watches. Imagine if everyone on Earth would stare at the night sky, stars, galaxies, constellations, etc. and contemplate our humanity, our commonality and that we are all made of “star-stuff.” Might we noy become more enlightened and accepting of each other? Put away our differences and pick up our telescopes?

The International Dark-Sky Association’s purpose is to protect the night from light pollution. According to their website they promote win-win solutions that allow people to appreciate dark, star-filled skies while enjoying the benefits of responsible outdoor lighting. Their vision is a night sky that is filled with stars and celebrated and protected around the world as a shared heritage benefiting all living things. They offer five types of dark sky designations: communities, parks, reserves, sanctuaries, and urban night sky places in countries around the world.

International Dark-Sky Parks are

Stargazing John, and I planned a fall driving adventure to northern PA to view the lands that possess an exceptional changing leaf colors and to discover or distinguished quality of starry other wonders of nature. nights and nocturnal environment I had heard about dark sky adprotected specifically for scientific, ventures from friends Ben and natural, educational cultural heri- Rita Griffin, who are avid nature tage, and/or public enjoyment of the photographers. They have captured mysteries of the universe. The land everything from the unique flora may be public or privately owned. and fauna of the Galapagos Islands They view a dark night sky as a to multiple lunar eclipses. They pack natural resource, just like plants, their fancy camera equipment and waterways, wildlife and geographi- hit the road ~ or did, before 2020. cal features. During my research on our PA

How did we come to be stargazing, destination, I found a recommensitting on wooden benches in a farm dation to visit Cherry Springs State field with a 360-degree view of the Park, an 82-acre site in northern PA night sky, high up on the Allegheny on the Allegheny Plateau surrounded Plateau of Potter County, Pennsyl- by the 262,000-acre Susquehannock vania? After a long drought of not State Park. At the top of a 2,300-foot traveling due to both the pandemic mountain and with the darkest sky and my cancer journey, my husband, east of the Mississippi, it is a mecca

Stargazing and a provide a positive stargazing experience. for astronomers and stargazers Further research on Cherry State with its dedicated, unobstructed, Park stargazing revealed that there panoramic night views from spring were limited ranger programs/tours, to fall. usually only in the summer, and they

The park was designated the were not available when we were second International Dark Sky Park there in early October. Persistence and the fi rst in the eastern U.S. It paid off when I found a reference on is noted for its amazing nighttime the park’s website to a former park views of the Milky Way. The park was environmental education specialist named by Sky & Telescope magazine who off ered stargazing tours in a prias one of the “10 U.S. Dark Sky Parks vate setting, his grandfather’s farm. You Need to Visit.” The surrounding It was close to the park and was withforest is relatively undeveloped and out the park crowds and interference the nearby communities are in val- from artifi cial light. We learned that leys, shielding light from the park. the best time for stargazing is when Lighting in the park is also shielded the moon is dark, the week before and converted from white light to and after the new moon, so there is red light to preserve night vision no interference from refl ected moon-

Stargazing with the best clear sky. How kind and thoughtful. The day before our light. We booked our trip around the three-day window, he canceled all moon’s dark cycle. three due to poor weather predic-

Thus, we found ourselves and a tions! We were so disappointed. few other stargazers staring up-close Then he texted us a day later to and personal at the Milky Way with set up a night when the skies were the naked eye and being regaled with newly predicted to be clear. Hooray, stories about the universe by Greg the stargazing adventure was on! Snowman, our tour guide. Greg had Interestingly, Greg doesn’t accept presented Night Sky Tour programs payment until the show is over since to thousands of people at the park he is at the mercy of the skies to and now shares his passion for the produce a show. night sky through his Potter County Getting to the site was another Stargazing Tours. adventure. We traveled north from

Part of the stargazing adventure our PA lodging near Wellsboro, past preceded the tour. Greg was thought- mountains decorated in the brilliant ful in planning our night. Instead leaf colors of scarlet, orange, gold of assigning us just one night, he and russet. Deer scampered across said to keep all three nights of our the narrow, winding roads and we visit open and he would pick the one spotted a porcupine, but thankfully,

there was no traffi c. We stopped at Cherry Springs State Park first, a haven for astronomers, and went to the Night Sky Public Viewing Area across from the Overnight Astronomy Observation Field.

The signage at the park was most helpful, and we observed their education setting of benches and a big screen in the fi eld. No park rangers were in sight. Stargazers of all ages were arriving carrying chairs, coolers, blankets and telescopes under skies that were just beginning to clear. Greg picked a clear, starry night.

We then drove to a white barn on a twisting back country road, using only the map coordinates that Greg had provided. At 8 p.m., we met him and three other cars of couples. Right there at the barn at dusk, he pointed out our sister planets already glowing in the sky: Venus, Jupiter and Saturn! He loaded his equipment and drove us to his private, exclusive Astro Field Viewing area on another

A clean house can wipe away those winter blues!

C LEANING S ERVICE

Reliable & Flexible • Locally Owned & Operated Background-Checked • FREE ESTIMATES Excellent Customer Service • Gi Certificates Available

Call today to schedule an appointment. 410.251.2838 | Tidewatercleaningservice.com

Stargazing in real time and in color on all monitors without visitors having winding, narrow gravel road just as to struggle with the telescope eye the sun was setting. We parked and pieces and taking turns to view. grabbed our blankets and equip- We could all see the images that ment, which for us amounted to a he captured that night in real time, meager telescope that we didn’t use the wonders of the heavens above. or need and my cell phone with an The first part of Greg’s Night app for astrophotography, Neural Sky Tour included a review of the Cam/Nightmode, that didn’t work sky with the naked eye. He showed very well. us the planets, the Big and Little We settled onto comfortable Dipper and other constellations. wooden benches and wrapped To our surprise, he pointed to the ourselves in blankets while Greg set International Space Station travelup his Celestron CPC8” motorized ing quickly across the sky. Greg said telescope with a wide assortment the Space Station travels 250 miles of eyepieces for viewing the plan- above the earth at an astounding ets and moon. To view deep space 17,000 miles per hour and circles objects, he uses the telescope, GPS the globe once every 90 minutes. It linked to space coordinates with a shimmered like a star, but Greg said video camera specifically designed that was due to the sun’s reflection for astronomical use. Greg set and not the space station’s own up three monitors on a table (he light. Of course, we also saw many has since replaced them with one airplanes traversing the night skies. large outdoor movie screen and Greg then took us on a night sky projector, according to his Face- tour using a laser to point out conbook page). He shows stargazers stellations and stars in the northern the space images captured by his area of the sky and then completing a telescope and video camera on the full circle of the sky above us. He was monitors. The images are shown entertaining, knowledgeable, and approachable, easily and patiently answering questions as they came up. After pointing out the North Star, which to my surprise is not the brightest star in the sky but ranks 49th, we saw approximately 15 constellations as he shared fascinating stories and descriptions about how the most popularly known constellations, like the signs of the Zodiac,

Stargazing contents with predicting when to hunt, sow and reap, and when to were named mostly by our Greek and gather tribes…the ability to read the Roman ancestors. calendar in the skies was literally a

Ancient astronomers watched the matter of life and death.” night sky (with very little light pollu- In National Geographic magation) and named groups of stars by zine, Nadia Drake writes that the what they knew best: their animals, Dark Sky “is the whirling dance of warriors, gods and mythology. Thus, orbital dynamics.” She also notes we saw Orion, the Hunter; Ursa “Since civilizations first gazed skyMajor, the Great Bear, and the Big ward cultures practiced astronomy Dipper within it; Ursa Minor, the and astrology including aborigiSmaller Bear; and Andromeda, the nals, Native Americans, Arabians, Chained Maiden. We also saw Sagit- Mayans, Persians, Greeks and Rotarius, Capricornus, Leo, Aquarius, mans.” We felt like we were getting etc. You have to stretch your imagi- in touch with our ancestors in a field nation to see the shapes that our in the wilds of PA with our fellow ancestors named. We were also stargazers. entertained by a few meteor showers As the night grew darker, we could or streaks, sometimes erroneously see our own beautiful, glowing Milky called “falling stars.” Way galaxy stretched across the sky

Carl Sagan’s explanation about and easily visible with the naked eye. our ancestors’ naming of the con- It appeared as a large white spiral stellations and understanding the band of stars with whirling clouds universe makes perfect sense to me. of gases. We learned that the Milky Sagan said, “…We were hunter folk Way is composed of over 400 billion and we saw hunters, dogs and bears stars, according to Carl Sagan, and [in the sky] …our ancestral observ- also that our universe is composed ers connected the universe and its of over a hundred billion galaxies, one of which is ours. A truly thrilling experience! Our solar system is a part of the Milky Way galaxy. Greg said that the reason the Milky Way did not look colorful to us that night is because of our inability to see color with night vision. The brilliant, colorful pictures that we have seen of the Milky Way are usually taken with very specialized cameras and telescopes.

We learned that a galaxy is a system of millions or billions of stars, along with gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction. Galaxies are composed of stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, nebulae, dust neutron stars and black holes. A galaxy is considered an oasis in space

Next, we viewed Deep Space Objects (DSOs) such as planets, galaxies, nebulae and open and globular clusters beamed through Greg’s telescope and camera, which were pre-programmed to locate the objects. We were surprised to see the varying shapes of galaxies. Some were circular, some were oval, some were spiral, but all the galaxies had components held together by gravity, just like ours. We saw our closest neighbor in the galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, about 2.3 million light years away. The varying whirling shapes and colors in pinks, blues and whites were glorious, fascinating and mesmerizing. The colors could be seen through Greg’s equipment.

We learned that stars are gaseous matter, masses of plasma held by gravity and emitting energy. Stars usually appear white to the human eye, but they range in color from red, orange and yellow to green, white and blue, with red being the coolest and blue the hottest. Specialized equipment can detect the colors. Our Sun, the center of our solar system, is a dwarf yellow star. According to NASA, our solar system consists of our star and everything bound to it by gravity: the planets (large, round celestial objects that revolve around the sun in fixed orbits) and smaller objects such as dozens of moons and millions of asteroids, comets and meteoroids. Our solar system is in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

Our tour ended all too soon. We will go back. I love that we humans continue to explore the universe, the moon, Mars, and asteroids and occupy a space station. Space exploration is always in the news and will continue to be. Maybe we will all experience space one day with NASA, other countries and Bezos