If you like astronomy, North Dakota can be a great place to view the night sky. After all, we have a lot of clear and cold nights, which translates to the colder it gets, the less diffusion of light. Said another way, if it’s clear and 40 below zero, your viewing will be much better than clear and zero.
When it comes to winter viewing of the night sky, you need a lot of patience. You can’t just step outside your door and expect to see a meteorite whizzing by. It’s going to take a little more effort than that.
I got hooked on astronomy in the fall of 1984 when I found out Halley’s Comet was on its way. I wrote a couple of articles for the college newspaper about the comet and took an astronomy class to learn more about the night sky.
Early in 1985, I purchased a telescope to correspond with the astronomy class. When the professor said the comet was visible through a telescope, a lot of us got really excited. It wasn’t easy, living in Bismarck near campus with all the lights, but there were some dark spots that made viewing of the comet a premium.
By March 1986, the comet had developed quite a tail and one cold, clear morning, I woke my roommate at 4 a.m., and we drove south of Bismarck about 20 miles to look for Comet Halley. We found it with the naked eye, but it was a bit of a disappointment. We thought it would be brighter and it had a short, fat tail behind it.
In late fall 1988, while a student at UND, I invited several of my colleagues from the Dakota Student newspaper over to my apartment to look at Mars. It was at perihelic opposition, it’s closest approach to Earth which promised a great view and we certainly got it.
We locked onto the planet with the telescope and although the “canals” weren’t so unusual, we noticed Olympus Mons and both polar ice caps, something that I hadn’t seen in nearly four years of looking at Mars.
By January 1990, I was working as a sports editor in Carrington and one cold night that wasn’t a sports night, I was looking at Jupiter and there was a bump on the side of the planet. I thought it was frost or condensation on the telescope lens. After cleaning it, the bump was still there. So, I kept watching even though my toes were numb by now. It turned out to be one of Jupiter’s moons emerging from behind the planet.
But I think the best example I can give of good night sky viewing came on Jan. 28, 2004 when I photographed the Aurora Borealis. Many of us know that when the aurora dances across the sky, there isn’t a sound. That’s how I remember that night.
The temperature was 32 below zero and there wasn’t a bit of wind. This time it wasn’t the telescope, but the camera and tripod were set up in much the same way. I was about two blocks from home on a vacant lot where my greenhouse is now located. I was standing in about two feet of snow and had numerous layers on so I would have the patience for the long haul.
The aurora that night, or actually morning by now, was incredible. It was as clear and as vivid as you’d see in a National Geographic photo. And, in 2004, I was using a Minolta film camera with the little batteries that look like a very thick dime.
In 90 minutes, I took 108 pictures and although I was comfortable in my stance, the camera batteries froze up a couple of times so I had to take them out and put them in my armpit to warm up enough to operate.
Unfortunately, that’s when the fingers began to go numb and I couldn’t feel myself clicking the shutter. As a result, the last 10 or 12 photos were blurry and useless.
But most were good and some were spectacular and that’s the message here today. It’s about the clarity you get when it is that cold. I don’t think I would have believed it had I not done it myself. It was well worth standing in the cold of night for 90 minutes. Some of those photos still get passed around and it’s been more than 20 years.
There’s some irony here. When we look back at pictures of Halley’s Comet from 1910, most people are wearing just a shirt, no jacket etc. Sure, they could see the comet in May 1910, but the images weren’t nearly what they were in January or February 1910.
At least there’s one advantage to the bitter cold of winter nights.
