Winamp Logo
Western Slope Skies Cover
Western Slope Skies Profile

Western Slope Skies

English, Space/Cosmology, 2022 seasons, 32 episodes, 1 hour, 50 minutes
About
A bi-weekly short feature on astronomy, produced by members of the Black Canyon Astronomical Society.
Episode Artwork

Spot Some Earth Satellites!

On clear, dark nights, we can see dozens of satellites with our eyes alone. Most satellites travel within a zone called Low Earth Orbit that ranges in altitude from 150 to 1200 miles.
2/16/20243 minutes, 18 seconds
Episode Artwork

The Mystery of the Maunder Minimum

Today, we explore a curious solar phenomenon that occurred from 1645 to 1715.
2/2/20243 minutes, 9 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Traveling through time with a telescope

What if I told you that you could travel through time with a telescope? No, a telescope cannot take you back to 1955 to fix your parent’s relationship. However, through a telescope, the possibilities to discover events that happened eons ago are opened by gazing at the colossal night sky.
1/19/20243 minutes, 42 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Dark Matter

In the vast expanse of the cosmos, there exists a mysterious force that challenges the very fabric of our understanding — dark matter. Let's embark on a journey into the cosmic unknown, exploring the enigma that comprises 85% of the universe's mass.
1/5/20243 minutes, 15 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Presidents, Cows, and Eclipses

Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park and the surrounding Hill Country will be offering many events over eclipse weekend.
12/22/20233 minutes, 37 seconds
Episode Artwork

Wonders of a Dark, December Sky

In December, it’s tempting to stay inside and avoid the cold night air. But the December night sky is impressive! Find a star chart or planetarium App, then go out on a clear night, at least briefly, to enjoy the spectacle!
12/8/20233 minutes, 25 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Stars Above, Stars Within

You may fondly remember the classic Eighties science program Cosmos, narrated by the late great astrophysicist Carl Sagan. In the episode “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”, he famously uttered “we’re made of star stuff”. We are the products of nucleosynthesis, a set of processes that created the chemical elements, the building blocks of all we see and are.
11/24/20233 minutes, 34 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Astronomy Highlights for 2024

2024 is almost here, and in astronomy, a lot will be happening.
11/24/20233 minutes, 39 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Shedding Light on Dark Matter

Dark matter. You’ve probably heard of it, maybe in a Sci-Fi novel or movie, and you’ve probably wondered what it is exactly. Well, welcome to the club. Scientists have been asking themselves this question since its discovery in 1933. Dark matter is an invisible, mysterious substance that makes up 22% of the universe, but we know very little about it.
10/27/20233 minutes, 44 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Rings in Space

Ring nebulae and the rings of Saturn are among some familiar rings that exist in space. But consider ring galaxies!
10/12/20234 minutes, 5 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse

In a total eclipse, the moon covers the sun completely and the sky darkens as if it were dawn or dusk.
9/29/20232 minutes, 48 seconds
Episode Artwork

The Universe Got Bigger

On the night of October 5, 1923, using the 100-inch Hooker telescope on Mt. Wilson, Edwin Hubble captured a photographic plate image of M31, the Andromeda “Nebula”.
9/15/20233 minutes, 26 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - ASTROFEST 2023

This year’s festival will run from September 14 through 16th, to coincide with the September new moon.
9/1/20233 minutes, 29 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - The Hubble Space Telescope

If you’ve been paying attention to the news in the past year you’ve no doubt heard about the James Webb Space Telescope. However, there is another space telescope that still deserves your attention.
8/18/20233 minutes, 11 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Meteors and Dark Skies

One of the best meteor showers of the year will peak during the second weekend of August, presenting the perfect opportunity to spot shooting stars streaking across the sky.
8/4/20233 minutes, 45 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - Echoes Across a Cosmic Ocean

Recently, scientists announced detection of a persistent gravitational wave background (GWB), continually rippling the cosmos like a calm ocean breeze.
7/21/20234 minutes, 4 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - The Real Hubble

When people hear the name “Edwin Hubble,” they typically think of the Hubble Space Telescope. However, the Hubble Space Telescope was built after Edwin Hubble’s death as a way to honor him.
7/7/20233 minutes, 26 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: Scotobiology

The concept of scotobiology as a science was developed at a conference on light pollution held in Muskoka, Ontario, in 2003. Just as the word “photo” relates to light, “scoto” is the word that relates to “darkness.” Therefore, Scotobiology is the study of the role darkness plays in living organisms.
6/23/20233 minutes, 10 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: The Magic Behind Shooting Stars

Have you ever wished upon a shooting star? For most of us, the novelty of wishing on a shooting star has faded since the days of our childhood.
6/9/20232 minutes, 48 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: Gran Telescopio Canarias

The telescope’s most important discovery to date has been finding the farthest black hole located at the center of a rare type of galaxy.
5/26/20232 minutes, 48 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: NASA DARTS an Asteroid

On September 26, 2022, a NASA spacecraft ran into the asteroid Dimorphos at nearly 15,000 miles per hour. Far from being a multi-million-dollar boondoggle, this collision is precisely what astronomers had planned. The spacecraft was part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, or DART for short. The goal: to test technology that could potentially divert a large asteroid, should we ever locate one on a collision course with Earth.
5/12/20233 minutes, 19 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: Lake City’s Starry Skies

From June 7-11, we will hold our first ever StarFest to celebrate Lake City’s starry skies and gather other dark sky advocates and interested folks from the western slope, the San Luis Valley, and throughout Colorado to see what more can be done to assure our precious night skies can be enjoyed by future generations. Unfortunately, light pollution is getting worse around the world so taking action is critical to turning things around.
4/28/20233 minutes, 50 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: The Saga of Venusian Exploration

Gleaming naked-eye apparition, Venus has captivated civilization since antiquity, garnering epithets of divine power and beauty-- Chac-Ek (“Great Star”) in Mayan, Jin-xing (“Golden Planet”) in Chinese, Phosphoros (“Lightbringer”) in Greek.
4/14/20233 minutes, 58 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: Lunar Delivery Driver

Back when our beloved western cities were still young and their skies still dark, customers waited weeks or even months for basic household items to reach their local mercantile shelves.
3/17/20233 minutes, 21 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: Charles Messier: Comet Hunter

Imagine being a poor 13-year old boy living in France in 1744 and observing a 6-tailed comet in the daytime. What aspirations might that have generated in a teenager?
3/3/20233 minutes, 26 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: The Winter Milky Way

The name Milky Way means two things: the star-packed photogenic river of stars across sky for one. It also refers to the hundreds of billions of stars that make up our galaxy. No matter where you look in the Western Slope sky, every star is part of our galaxy.
2/17/20233 minutes, 45 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies: Comets: Icy, Dusty Visitors from Afar

Comets, once considered portents of doom, have long puzzled us. They move rapidly against the starry background. They grow tails, which may explain why the ancient Greeks called them “hairy stars.” Their brightness and even their exact paths can be hard to predict. So, what are these mysterious visitors that sometimes appear in our sky?
2/3/20233 minutes, 9 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - The Late, Late Show: Getting Personal with the Moon

In the very early hours of November 8, the second total lunar eclipse of 2022 will be visible from Western Colorado.
10/28/20223 minutes, 49 seconds
Episode Artwork

Western Slope Skies - NASA’s Juno at Jupiter

This month is a great time to view Jupiter, because this 86,000 mile-wide, giant planet is visible nearly all night long.
10/14/20223 minutes, 17 seconds