While we continue to learn how to dodge threats to our physical health from the pandemic, spring is arriving with opportunities to nurture mind and body in the safety of the outdoors.
Even though moonlight this year will overwhelm the light of many Geminid meteors, begin to look skyward every night at about 9 p.m., facing away from the moon.
Let morning stargazing begin! The darkness of night, when all naked eye stars and constellations are visible, prevails until about 5:35 a.m. this week and 5:50 a.m. at month’s end.
Even faint shooting stars may be visible in dark skies in locations away from artificial light. The peak of the Eta Aquariids is predicted to be before dawn Sunday morning, May 5.
When I turned around at the crest of the hill, I saw brilliant light with a rosy glow spread across the top of the mountain to the southwest, above the dim hillside below, where I stood.
Add a cosmic perspective to this culmination in our solar system by being outdoors 60 to 75 minutes before sunrise, when the stars of our galaxy populate the dark sky.
See January’s shining Full Wolf Moon go dark, the stars appear in a nearly moonless sky and the brilliant orb return to full light, outshining all but the brightest distant suns.
