Pagosa Springs Colorado
Looking Up: Stargazing in Pagosa Country

by Norm Vance

If you have a camera with a time exposure setting interesting photos of the International Space Station can be taken. By knowing where the station will pass over you can mount the camera on a tripod or set it on a solid object pointing in the correct direction and open the shutter just before or as it becomes visible. The longer the shutter is open the longer the streak in the photo will be and long exposures will also show star and moon movement. In this case the camera was mounted so the trees would be in the image and after the first exposure was complete a second exposure was made with the flash on illuminating the frosted tree branches and adding perspective.

Travelers into the San Juan are enchanted by the rugged, high altitude Rocky Mountains. As one looks south, the San Juan Range has the last high altitude alpine forests. The ridges and peaks of the Continental Divide protruding above timberline are unique and moving to folks from lower and less dramatic environments. Residents of the area should work at never letting the terrain get boring or taken for granted.
When the sun goes down the vistas are lost and most folks settle down to rest for when it rises again, and then they look up! WOW, look at that!

The night sky at 7,000’ and up is stunning. With a mile and a half less air, moisture, haze, clouds and pollution, the “heavens” are crystal clear and much more accessible, if you take time to look!

The full moon can be so bright it causes some to squint. All the “spaces” between the brightest stars seen at lower elevation are full of star fields so vast they strain the imagination. The planets are vivid, as have been the last several comets that were not so spectacular down below. With the right conditions the northern lights are even visible.

The San Juan night sky is a must for sharing with children! Don’t miss the opportunity, even if you have to brush-up on information at the library.

This is an excellent opportunity for people with optics. Big expensive telescopes are not necessary; a cheap Walmart scope can show you the wonders of the heavens. Don’t go for the highest power models as they restrict the view. The view through a far more common set of binoculars can also be rewarding. The best accessory for binoculars is a tripod. Even the smallest photography tripod with collapsible legs is satisfactory. It is far better to position yourself on a pallet on the ground or in a chair with backrest. Fit the tripod around you. Anything to steady binoculars and optics is better than nothing.

You will be astounded, once steady and with eyes adjusted to darkness, how much can be seen. Look at the brightest stars, they are probably planets and you can see the moons of Saturn and Jupiter and watch as they change positions from night to night. Optics of thirty power and more allows viewing Venus with phases just like the moon. Look into an empty space and marvel at how many stars are really there. The moon is bright and you might need to put a strip of tape in front of, but not touching the lens to cut the light. Craters cannot be seen when the moon is full – only near the shadow line when in phases.

Two People in a Test Tube

It is spectacular and surprising for most people to see a manmade satellite arcing overhead. It needn’t be surprising! NASA now has a website, nasaskywatch.gov that gives a list of sighting times for the International Space Station (ISS) and shuttle flights. The site gives a list of towns, click on Durango.

The ISS has grown with the additions of several modules and solar power panels, and is now the third brightest object in our sky following the Sun and Moon.

The ISS is visible either just after sundown or just before sunrise. The ISS has no light of its own, we only see reflected sunlight. So, the sky must be darkish while the ISS is high enough, at the time it passes over, to still be in sunlight. If it suddenly disappears it is because it has moved into the earth’s shadow.

It is electrifying to see the ISS come up over the horizon and think that there are two or more people in it, at about the same distance as if they were standing in Albuquerque. It is equally interesting to ask the question, are they looking back at me? They may be, as astronauts have scheduled time off and report that looking back at earth is a favorite past time. It is more likely that you are in the view of cameras looking back recording and measuring various things on earth. If you Google for “terra server microsoft,” go through the search and zoom in, you may find your town and house with your car in the driveway in a space photograph!

The NASA Television Channel is now on some cable and TV dish channels. This channel puts you right in the tube (space station) with the astronauts and airs all sorts of space news and video. On the RCA Dish it is channel 376.

The NASA Skywatch site gives the times and direction the ISS first appears and is last seen and the length of time visible along with the degrees above the horizon. It is easy to distinguish from airplanes as it does not blink, have colored light, make sound or leave a contrail. A good set of binoculars, hand held for easy movement, allows making-out the cross shape it currently has. The living and science tube is the centerpiece with solar panel arrays making the cross part.

From time to time new astronauts go up and others come back and supply ships are common every few months. When these are sent to or come back from the ISS you might see them if you keep up with the schedule and are lucky. It takes a couple of days in orbit for the ships to slowly catch up or leave the ISS. If it passes overhead during that time, they are visible. Look for a tiny dot behind or ahead of the “mothership.” The comings and goings are usually covered on CNN, the NASA Channel or the website nasaspaceflights.gov.

Lobo Overlook

For the best possible view, far better than 99.999…% of earth’s inhabitants will ever see, go to the summit of Wolf Creek Pass and then proceed up the Lobo Overlook Road to the top. From the top of a Continental Divide mountain peak the sky just does not get clearer.

Don’t forget to look up.