Sky and Telescope - May 2012 - (Page 26)

Astro Tourism Stars Above, Earth Below: Astronomy TYLER NORDGREN As a professional astronomer, my luggage is covered with buttons and stickers from places familiar to astronomy enthusiasts, sites such as Palomar, Mauna Kea, Siding Spring, and Arecibo. But for the past ﬁve years my astronomical career has taken me to new destinations with names like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Glacier. As artiﬁcial lights creep toward our observatories and make it increasingly diﬃcult to see stars from urban areas, the national parks that protect our last unspoiled wilderness by day are also protecting our sky at night. Tonight I’ve driven to Great Basin National Park in central Nevada. Created around Lehman Caves National Monument in 1986, Great Basin is one of the newest national parks, and its isolation invokes a feeling of having stepped back into yesteryear. Instead of long lines of cars at multiple entry stations, there’s a single lonely road leading up into mountains that are dotted with aspen trees and that still carry patches of snow in July. This feeling of having stepped back in time continues after nightfall. As far as my eyes can see to the distant mountains, there’s not a single city light dome visible at all, and only a dozen or so house lights shine faintly in the distance. I can’t remember when I last saw a sky this dark. Even with the lights of my GPS and dashboard streaming into my eyes, I can still discern detail in the Milky Way that normally takes forever to tease out of the sky’s background glow. In Great Basin National Park, like the mountains, caves, aspens, and glacier that attract visitors by day, the galactic plane overhead is preserved the way everyone used to see it. Star Parties and Festivals Current estimates suggest that 60% of Americans no longer live where the Milky Way is even faintly visible, and worldwide roughly half of the children born in 2012 are expected to never see it at all. U.S. national parks are among the greatest locations guaranteed to reveal the splendor of the night sky. The public has noticed this. Surveys reveal that a starﬁlled sky is now as integral to a visitor’s park experience as seeing waterfalls and wildlife. To help protect this celestial resource for future generations, a small team of park rangers and professional astronomers are working together to measure and monitor the night sky of the parks, looking to quantify its darkness and the major sources of light pollution from inside and outside the park (see sidebar, page 32). The National Park Service Night Sky Team not only travels the country monitoring light pollution, it also helps coordinate astronomy volunteers for those parks looking to put on evening astronomy programs. These programs take the form of everything from hikes under a full Moon to telescope tours around the time of new Moon, all of which are among the most popular evening programs that parks oﬀer. In smaller parks, these night-sky programs may stem from the astronomy passion of a single ranger or volunteer, while at larger parks, local astronomy clubs work with rangers to regularly operate multiple telescopes for the public’s enjoyment. In Yosemite National Park, California astronomy clubs take turns setting up telescopes every summer weekend at Glacier Point, a spectacular vista that overlooks Half The Milky Way and Scorpius rise above Zion Canyon, the centerpiece of Zion National Park in southern Utah. PHOTO BY WALLY PACHOLKA in 26 May 2012 sky & telescope

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - May 2012

Sky and Telescope - May 2012
Table of Contents
Spectrum
Letters
75, 50 & 25 Years Ago
News Notes
Saturn’s Raging Superstorm
Stars Above, Earth Below: Astronomy in National Parks
The Remarkable Case of Comet Lovejoy
In This Section
May’s Sky at a Glance
Binocular Highlight
Planetary Almanac
Northern Hemisphere’s Sky
Sun, Moon, and Planets
Celestial Calendar
Exploring the Solar System
Deep-Sky Wonders
Going Deep
S&T Test Report
New Product Showcase
Telescope Workshop
Planetary Imaging with Your DSLR Camera
Gallery
Focal Point

Sky and Telescope - May 2012