In the western sky, during evening twilight, brilliant planet Venus and dimmer, red Mars highlight setting winter constellations and their bright stars. The season’s brightest star, radiant orange Arcturus, climbs in the east. Bluish Spica, with Corvus the Crow in the southeast, attract us as twilight deepens and all night. Quintessentially, summer stars and constellations make their appearance at nightfall, beginning with Vega, a corner star of the Summer Triangle, in the northeast.
Look for the waning moon in the west in early morning skies from now until new moon occurs on May 19. We have 10 moonless nights for the best stargazing ahead.
Public Program: Saturday night, May 13, 9 p.m. – 10:30 p.m., “Stargazing Over Baldwin Hill” in Egremont, an Earth Day Everyday and Dark Skies celebration that was postponed due to cloudy skies on Earth Day. Join me, a naked-eye stargazer, and amateur astronomer Rick Costello for a guided tour of the night sky. Storyteller of the stars Susan Bachelder may make an appearance.
While naked-eye observations will be ongoing, Rick will guide participants at the telescopes. Expect to see billions-of-years-old Globular Clusters composed of hundreds of thousands to approximately a million stars located above and below the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy. He will guide us to the southeastern sky to look at the Sombrero Galaxy, to the right of bright, bluish star Spica. And the Virgo Galaxy to the left and below Leo the Lion’s tail star, Denebola. In the northeast, the Ring Nebula will be seen below Vega, the second brightest star in the summer sky.
Come out to contemplate the cosmos. Clear skies are predicted for the nighttime hours. Do not shine cell phones or flash lights for light: When you drive up, allow your eyes to acclimate to the dark before joining the group.
From Great Barrington, travel west on Route 23 to Route 71, turn right and proceed to Baldwin Hill East-West, turn left and proceed to the location where telescopes are set up. Deep cloud cover cancels the program.
For the protection of starry skies, small individual actions and the big picture—in less than two minutes: please view this film.
From the International Dark Sky Association, some info you might find helpful: Light pollution is increasing at two times the rate of population growth, and 83 percent of the global population (and 99 percent of those in North America) lives under a light-polluted sky.\
Additionally, here is the state of the science report we released earlier this year and some other information about the rapid growth of light pollution.