234 Ranch Road 1050, Concan, TX 78838, US
Dark Skies - Did you know?
What’s going on in the night sky this month?
Autumn is here. The days are getting shorter. October starts with the dark beginning to fade at 6:13am and the skies totally dark again at 8:43pm. By the end of October the dark begins to fade 6:30am and skies are fully dark at 8:14pm. The full moon occurs on October 9th and new moon is on the 25th. The week before the 25th would be the best time for stargazing the darkest skies in the early evening and a great time to be on the lookout for meteors. The Orionids meteor shower will next peak around Oct 20 to 21 with the moon only 20% full. Best viewing are during the hours before dawn. Mercury will be hovering above the hills to the east at sunrise in early October. Venus will likely be hidden behind both the morning and evening horizons transitioning from a morning star to an evening star. Mars will rise around 8 to 9pm. Jupiter will be rising before sunset and be overhead around 10 to 11pm. Saturn will be overhead at sunset and setting about midnight. For more information on upcoming meteor showers, check out https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/. Go catch some falling stars in October. For those that were at the dance in the late fifties, recall Jimmy Newman singing "A Fallen Star".
October is Hill Country Night Sky Month.
It's time to look to the heavens and howl at the autumn moon. Join others across the hill country this October by making awareness of our night sky. Sponsored by the Hill Country Alliance, see their website for more information (https://hillcountryalliance.org/events/night-sky-month/). Friends of Garner joins the celebration with a local group that has created a poster for Night Skies for Camp Wood, Concan, Rio Frio, Leakey, Vanderpool, and Utopia. Pick up your 2022 Night Sky Month poster at the Friends of Garner Visitor Center . Express to others your love for the night sky. Posters measure 18" wide by 24" high. They are $20 each, $10 going to KIRB (keepitrealbeautiful.org) and the rest to the Friends of Garner.
Garner is in the path of TWO solar eclipses.
The first eclipse is October 24, 2023, a Tuesday and only a year away! An annular solar eclipse passes over Garner. The second and better one is Monday, April 8, 2024. A total eclipse will pass over Garner. For about 4 minutes between Noon and 1PM the land will go dark, and the stars will appear. See https://hillcountryalliance.org/hill-country-eclipse-portal/ for more information. If you want to visit or stay at Garner, park reservations will be required so mark your calendar to make reservations when they become available. Many lodging and camping sites in the Frio Canyon are already booked. Make your plans early.
Our skies aren't as dark as they use to be.
New neighbors, new businesses, they mostly come from the city. They install lights to light up their properties and light up the whole Frio Canyon in the process. From the top of Old Baldy, you can see light domes of Uvalde, Hondo, Bandera, Kerrville, and yes, even Concan and Leakey, Texas has their light bubbles. Let them know, "Illuminate only what is needed with only as much warm light as is needed." If you see lights shining upward or too bright, let's do better. If you want to continue to see stars, tell them you expect darker skies.
We are working on making our skies darker.
We want to make Garner an International Dark Skies Park. Unfortunately, it isn't currently dark enough. It takes some work. Educating our visitors, neighbors, students, businesses, and government officials; adding light shields; updating light fixtures; measuring, recording, and reporting light readings and other progress steps; getting the right color LED's; seeing what we can do to make the skies dark again. Interested in volunteering? Reach out to the Friends of Garner at 830-232-5999.
You can help educate others to keep our skies dark.
Spread the word, set an example. Shine light only when and where you need it. Only shine as much as you need. Use the warmest color light to minimize light scattering. Do we really need a blinding flood light lighting the heavens at every barn, parked car, business sign, steeple, or flag? Here is a link to the International Dark Sky Association's (IDA's) webpage of outreach materials.
Eighty percent of the world population has never seen the Milky Way.
Seeing the Milky Way requires fairly dark skies, skies that many don't ever see. Often before and after the new moon, while the moon is not shining, you can make out the Milky Way in our Garner skies. The Milky Way galaxy is made up of millions of stars. It is sometimes mistaken as a layer of clouds when first seen. The darker the skies the more magnificent the many stars stand out. Have you seen the stars from Garner State Park? Two hundred visitors saw a beautiful Milky Way from near the visitor center at our star party July 30th. Some said, "I thought those were clouds."
You can see a lot with your naked eyes or a set of binoculars
Early in the evening sky, start with finding our north star, Polaris, a bright star 30 degrees above the northern horizon. Look towards the northern horizon to find the Big Dipper below Polaris. Then following the handle of the Big Dipper, arc to Arcturus low on the western horizon. From there go towards your zenith, the sky straight overhead, to a bright star, Vega, seen before you reach the Milky Way. Vega is one of the stars of the Summer Triangle. See if you can also see the other two stars, Deneb (part of the constellation Cygnus) and Altair (part of the constellation Aquila). If you have nice dark skies and can see more than a few stars of the Little Dipper, on your way from Arcturus to Vega, you will pass through a couple of dim star arrangements, The Northern Crown and the Keystone of Hercules. The Great Globular Cluster of Hercules, also known as M13, is worth viewing with your binoculars. Also look with your binoculars between the constellation Aquila and the top of the teapot, Sagittarius, for numerous star clusters and nebula. Look for a "Sky Tour" program given occasionally when the skies are dark, and the weather is good or ask for a sky map, if available, at the Visitor Center. A good place to observe the heavens at the park is from the Excess Vehicle Parking Area just north of the Visitors Center. At the end of September, there were new Rio Brewster trash dumpsters delivered there. If placed further north, the dumpsters could have been blocking car lights from the park road traffic.
Friends of Garner has a telescope
While the scope might not be a large spectacular instrument, it generates oohs and ahs when viewing Jupiter, Saturn, or the moon up in the Garner night skies. At a local star party Sept 23rd, Saturn was in viewfinder for over an hour with about 30 people saying, "It's just like the pictures you see."
Several astronomy clubs come to view the skies above Garner. Check the park's calendars for other star parties, often held on a Saturday night around the occurrence of a new moon when skies are at their darkest.