Sonoma County stargazing events another great reason to look into the summer skies

If you’ve never stood beneath a dark sky with the Milky Way blazing overhead, with deep fields of skies going back farther than you can see, you haven’t lived. No light show on Earth can compare; few sights inspire quite as much curiosity and wonder about our place in the cosmos. If you have seen the show, but not lately, now’s the time. Summer is an excellent season to gaze up into the heavens in Sonoma County, given our (sometimes) warm nights and clear skies combining for unforgettable outings under jaw dropping canopies of stars.

Up in the sky right now

In June during the prime viewing hours before midnight, several of our brightest stars and most familiar constellations make their nightly trek across the sky. To find them, you need only grab a star chart, take a folding chair or blanket to a location away from city glow, and start by looking north for the Pole Star in the handle of the Big Dipper. Next, scan west to catch any must-see favorites before they sink below the horizon. If your timing is right, you’ll just catch the yellowish star Pollux, the brightest twin of Greek and Roman mythology, just setting in the northwest.

High in the sky, nearly overhead, Arcturus will be resting in the lap of brooding Boötes the herdsman. The orange star is usually the first bright light other than planets to show after sunset. Another early evening star, bluish-white Vega, will have climbed halfway up from the east horizon. Visible on most nights of the year, Vega is the sparkling jewel in the constellation Lyre’s arched top.

No night of summer stargazing is complete without a look at the soaring eagle (Aquila) farther to the east, its wings outstretched, bright star Altair gleaming yellow-white in line with two more stars in the raptor’s head. Vega and Altair, along with Deneb in Cygnus the swan, holds down a corner of the Summer Triangle, a huge pattern of three alpha stars hotter than our sun.

On clear, dark nights, the Milky Way rises in a creamy arc in the east. If the horizon is bright with city lights, the sweep of stars in our home galaxy will only be visible once it has climbed up in the sky, above the glow.

The value of darkness

Behind every star and constellation is a story; each night of stargazing reconnects us to them. Each night also sparks an appreciation for the incomparable value of dark skies. Astronomers gauge the quality of darkness in the night sky in terms of limiting magnitude, a measure of the impact of natural light like the setting sun or rising moon. Limiting magnitude, shown on clear sky charts, discounts brightness from artificial sources like residential, industrial, and commercial lighting. Still, their growing impact is mapped and tracked.

Today these artificial sources of light, the only ones we control, dominate brightness maps. Scientists estimate that 80 percent of the world’s population is negatively impacted by overlighting at night. Some of the effects include the reduced production of melatonin, a hormone in that aids sleep, boosts our immune systems and glandular productivity, and helps lower cholesterol. Trouble sleeping? Look into replacing outdoor glare-lighting with discrete area lights.

Pioneering studies on dark skies in our national parks and other land reserves shows that nocturnal predators change their nighttime hunting and foraging because of intrusive lighting. Migrating birds, too, are disoriented by it, adding more challenge to their already Herculean flight between breeding and wintering grounds. Some ecosystems to be more sensitive to artificial light than others, too - wetland and ponds, shorelines, alpine areas, and open country such as deserts and prairie are among those least tolerant of light pollution.

Fortunately, artificial light is one of the growing impacts on our natural world that’s easiest to remedy, with the availability of lighting that beams where it’s needed and not where it’s not. Dark-sky-approved outdoor lighting may cost more at first but quickly pays for itself, costing a fraction of conventional glare-lighting to operate. Make the switch, and your neighbors both human and wild will thank you.

Then you’ll stand under a summer sky rich with stars, planets, and the spiral arms of our own galaxy, knowing you’ve helped improve the already amazing view.

Rebecca Lawton is a Sonoma-based author and ?scientist.