Driftless Dark Skies: Venus and Mars

Driftless Dark Skies: Venus and Mars

As we wend our way from spring to summer this month, Venus and Mars will be putting on a wonderful show in the evening sky. Head out on June 1st and look west where the Sun is setting around 8:30pm. The first bright object to emerge will be Venus. It’s thirty degrees...
Driftless Dark Skies: Northern Lights

Driftless Dark Skies: Northern Lights

​It was such a thrill to see the amazing auroral display on March 23 and then again on April 23. I remember so many nights standing in the dark waiting for northern lights that never appeared. But those two nights, I watched in wonder for hours as the storms...
Driftless Dark Skies Conserving the Night

Driftless Dark Skies Conserving the Night

“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Baba Dioum (born 1937) is a Senegalese forestry engineer. We celebrate International Dark Sky Week on April 15-22. Our...
Driftless Dark Skies: Vernal Equinox

Driftless Dark Skies: Vernal Equinox

There is a quickening as we near the Vernal Equinox and the beginning of spring on March 20. We now have twelve hours of sunlight, three more than we had back on the Winter Solstice. Sunrises are an hour and a half earlier and sunsets are an hour and a half later. And...
Driftless Dark Skies: Stargazing with Venus

Driftless Dark Skies: Stargazing with Venus

Venus, our sibling planet, is good evening company the rest of this winter and into the summer. After the Sun and Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky and the first “star” visible in the twilight. As February begins, the Sun sets in the southwest around...
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