Greetings, stargazers.
Besides stars, planets, galaxies, and nebulae, there are lots of other interesting things to see in the Durango sky. I am particularly thinking of some of the human-made objects. I find that some are really cool, while others are really annoying.
Last month, I was lucky enough to see a SpaceX launch as it boosted into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The interesting part of this experience was that I saw the rocket plume from Fort Lewis College in Durango.
The launch complex is on the Pacific coast just west of Los Angeles. According to Google maps, it is 733 miles as the crow flies from Durango. Normally, that would be well beyond the horizon, but rockets fly high enough to be seen from a long way away. During daylight hours, or the middle of the night, there would be no hope of seeing it from Durango. However, when a launch happens just after sunset on the West Coast, the plume will be in sunlight as the rocket lifts into orbit. Because Durango is an hour later, it is completely dark here and the plume will be a bright, sunlit white.
This is the second Vandenberg launch I have seen from campus. Because the launch schedule is so unpredictable, it requires a bit of luck to see one from here. For this launch, I was looking for it ahead of time and had my camera ready. The plume was visible for about a minute.
The International Space Station regularly passes overhead. Just after dusk or right before dawn, the Space Station will be in sunlight while we are mostly in darkness. When visible, it can sometimes be even brighter than Venus, which would make it the third brightest object in the sky. Viewing opportunities tend to occur in bunches, so you might get to see it a couple of times in a week and then go for a few weeks without a good viewing opportunity. Many stargazing phone apps can identify this and other bright satellites.
Then there are satellite constellations. The most well-known is Starlink. If you haven’t seen a chain of these satellites crossing the sky, you should get outside more often. These are the ones that most likely will cross your field of view during a long exposure photograph, and have caused many complaints from astronomers. On the plus side, they do give high-speed internet access to people living in remote areas, and I have friends who compare their upgraded internet access to the invention of sliced bread. Right after launch, these clusters of satellites are close together and can be very bright. Fortunately, in their final orbital position, they are much more spread out, and farther away, so much dimmer when viewed from the ground.
Charles Hakes teaches in the physics and engineering department at Fort Lewis College and is the director of the Fort Lewis Observatory.