Urban Stargazing
Earlier this month, I traveled to Phoenix to visit my family for my nephew Wesley’s 1st birthday. After his party we drove up North to my parents’ cabin in rural Arizona. We arrived around midnight, and as I stood out out of the car and glanced upward at the sky, I gasped! With crystalline clarity, the milky-way arched high overhead, and my jaw dropped low toward the ground.
It wasn’t my first time seeing the plane of our galaxy, or the dim constellations of Capricorn or Aries, or a shooting star. But since I’ve been living in Los Angeles for the last few years, these features are certainly rare spectacles. Being a stargazer in one of the largest and brightest cities on Earth, I often lament that it’s as if I’m in a long-distance relationship with a true-love.
However, none of that is to say that I can’t enjoy the night sky at home in LA! I still go outside to gaze upward often, and enjoy my time doing so. So, I want to share a few tips for how you can cultivate a deep relationship with the heavens, even if you live somewhere like the City of Angels.
The 1st Quarter Moon (left) and Arcturus, brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere (top right), setting over Phoenix
Look on the bright side
When the sky is polluted with city lights, only the brightest celestial objects have the capability of reaching all the way down to your eyes. But this can be a blessing to amateur astronomers! As the many dimmer stars are edited out of view, you can more easily pinpoint the Visible Planets of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, as well as the stars with the greatest magnitudes, such as Sirius, Spica, Arcuturus, or Regulus, as well as iconic constellations like Orion or Ursa Major (the Big Dipper). Don’t let disappointment for all your can’t see discourage you from familiarizing yourself with all you can! Especially since what you can observe are many of the most famous planets and stars (as well as the Sun and Moon, of course).
My binoculars and bag, with Greek Mythology pins from Overly Sarcastic Productions
2. Binoculars are Stellar
While you probably don’t want to drop a couple hundred, or even thousand dollars on a telescope while living in a city, I highly recommend investing in a good pair of binoculars! They’re affordable, portable, and easy to use. They can give you a better view of the Moon, planets, and bright stars, as well as reveal dimmer stars that are unseen to the naked eye, elevating your stargazing experience no matter how bright your skies appear. When looking at the Pleiades, most can discern 5 or 6 stars clustered together, but binoculars will reveal many more, even dozens of points in the spot.
Personally, I use a pair of Nikon Prostate 3s Binoculars, and love them! But there are many on the market, and can be thrifted as well!
3rd Quarter Moon out the window of my Morning flight From LA to Salt Lake
3. Day-Gazing
You don’t have to wait past dusk to gaze. During the daytime, you can also make careful observations about the Sun’s light, not looking directly at it of course! Learn to use its position, and the shifting shadows it casts, to know the time of day. Find your way around your city by understanding how it denotes direction. Or you can access your inner child, and try to find shapes in the constantly changing clouds, or entertain yourself with planes and birds.
When it is there, the main celestial object of interest during the day is the Moon, in its various phases. It is easiest to spot in the opaque blue sky while a Waxing or Waning Gibbous, or at its Quarters. You can see the Waxing Gibbous rising Eastward in the afternoon, or the Waning Gibbous setting in the West after you wake up in the morning. A very skilled stargazer may even be able to spot Venus during the day, by far the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon!
It was while I was stuck in Quarantine 2020 that I first really fell in love with the sky and all that I could find there. During that time of great uncertainty, not knowing what would happen even the next day to the World, I discovered a great comforting consistency and predictability in the cycles above. But please don’t wait for the next pandemic to do so yourself! I hope these 3 tips have inspired confidence that you can have a robust relationship with the heavens, no matter where in the world you might be. ⭕️
If you want daily updates on the special sights of the night, come join my Stargazing Facebook group. We’d love to see your pictures!