“The retreat brings people together, builds community in the forest, gets participants outside and off their screens, and uses nature sustainably to heal and inspire minds and souls,” stated Great Mountain Forest Executive Director Michael Zafros. Retreat registration closes on July 30.
When planning on being outdoors at dawn for planet- and star-gazing, know that being out just an hour earlier may add shooting stars to your experiences of the heavens.
This glorious image, a tour-de-force of 21st-century science, reveals solar dynamics crucial to our awareness of our planet in space as well as teaching us about the universe of stars beyond Earth.
On this, the vernal equinox, let’s pause together to notice sunrise due east on the horizon and the higher arc our star draws as it climbs and then descends to its due west position on the skyline.
During the months on either side of the spring and autumn equinoxes, there’s an elusive phenomenon, the zodiacal light, a glowing cone of light that is visible only in very clear and very dark skies.
Most of us are focused on one simple aspect of the astronomy of the season: the solstice that occurred on December 21. Unless we look closer, the fact escapes us that the darkest mornings of the year begin this Thursday, the 29th.
Although moonlight will screen out a view of all but a fraction of the shooting stars in the Geminid meteor shower, “a patient observer may be able to spot 20 or so per hour, even from urban locations,” according to the United States Naval Observatory writer.
Cinching evening darkness, new moon falls on the 29th, followed by evenings enhanced by a waxing crescent moon that sets early leading to long, dark, moonless nights.
We experience sustained maximum sunlight during the six-week period that spans from May 30 through July 13, when days are 15 hours or longer between sunrise and sunset.
The longest days of the year, from Friday the 19th – Wednesday the 24th, are 15 hours 16 minutes, which leaves 8 hours 44 minutes from sundown to sunup, the shortest nights of the year. For the rest of June and through the first week of July, nights are barely 8 hours long when dawn and dusk are taken into account.
