Joshua Tree NP Night Sky Festival, image of Sky's The Limit facility by NPS Hannah Schwalbe.
Night Sky Festival
Today was the main day of the Night Sky Festival at Joshua Tree: what a great day. I started at park headquarters to check out the various booths with information and cool stuff to look at, like a collection of meteorites. I talked at length to Dr. Tyler Nordgren, a physics and astronomy professor who's also an artist, does the WPA style night sky and eclipse posters for the NPS, and did a year long sabbatical to travel the national parks, take night sky photos, and wrote a book about it all: Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks. I highly recommend. And, small world, he also almost did the same artist in residence program in Alaska this year that I did last year, but he couldn't make the timing work. Maybe next year.
I spent the afternoon listening to all of the speakers, a tremendous group of individuals with fascinating things to share. Most work for or with NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory on various missions including Cassini, Dawn, and the upcoming Europa Clipper. There was a panel discussion about women in science, and the evening ended with the always great Kevin Poe, the NPS's Dark Ranger who works out of Bryce Canyon. After the speakers I headed up to Sky's the Limit, a private observatory just outside the park that hosted a bunch of volunteers with telescopes. Some of what I saw: Uranus, Neptune, a globular cluster, the Pleiades, Betelgeuse, M57- a ring nebula, the crab supernova, and the Orion nebula. Great job on the Night Sky Festival this year, Joshua Tree!
As someone who started college intending to be an Astronomy major, I'm always thrilled for the chance to spend time around people who pursued this path. The telescopes are an added bonus. Oh, and I saw seven shooting stars. As great as the day was, I have no photographs to share. Instead I'll share a link to some astronomy inspired artwork images by Dr. Nordgren: http://www.tylernordgren.com/
