Navigating the Northern hemisphere

The Big Dipper can be used reliably to find your way around the sky and around Earth as well. Here’s how:

step 1) Locate the Big Dipper

The Big Dipper is very iconic and with its bright stars it’s usually one of the first things to jump out at you. Currently look for the Big Dipper very low in the northern sky (slightly east of due north) just after sunset. Depending on the time of year at sunset, the Big Dipper ranges from in the north-east from February to March, high in the north from April to May, in the north-west from June to October, and very low on the northern horizon November to January.

step 2) Find the North Star (Polaris) with the Big Dipper

One of the reasons the Big Dipper is so iconic is because it has been used for centuries to find the North Star. The two stars that make the end of the vessel of the Big Dipper are called “the pointer stars” because they point at the North Star. Make an imaginary line with these stars and trace it until you run into another star of similar brightness to the pointers, this is the North Star. (it’s a common misconception that the North Star is a particularly bright star; it’s really of similar brightness to the stars in the Big Dipper).

step 3) Find north with the North Star

Now that you found the North Star all you have to do is drop a line directly down to the horizon from that star and that’s due north!

Step 4) find your latitude with the North Star

The North Star can also tell you latitude; all you have to do is measure what angle the North Star is above the northern horizon and that’s your latitude. There’s a very ‘handy’ way of doing this with the pointer stars (the stars at the end of the vessel of the big dipper). Hold your hand out at a full arms length and measure how many fingers fit between the pointer stars (usually three fingers). The pointer stars are almost exactly 5 degrees apart so now all you have to do is count how many fingers fit between the horizon and the North Star and you have a rough estimate of how far north you are on the planet.

For example Baseline Road in south Boulder is called “baseline” because it is surveyed to be on the 40th parallel. If three fingers fit between the pointer stars, you would find standing on the sidewalk of Baseline Road eight sets of three (or 24 fingers) fit between the horizon and the North Star proving Baseline Road is exactly 40° north.

Baseline Rd extending across Colorado as seen from Sunrise Amphitheater

Tip: for the longitude measurement to work you have to start on the true horizon. Imagine you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean, where the water meets the sky is your true horizon. Do not use trees/buildings/mountains as the start of the horizon as measuring up any higher than the true horizon will make your measurement inaccurate.

The Astrotours Curse

In Boulder there’s lots of left hands. There’s Left Hand Brewing Company, Left Hand Creek, Left Hand Canyon. There’s also Niwot, which means left-handed in the native Arapaho language and is also the name of a town nearby (as well as nearby Niwot Mountain, and Niwot Ridge). All of these references to ‘left hand’ or Niwot are a homage to the southern Arapaho chief, Chief Niwot.

Chief Niwot

Chief Niwot played an integral role in Colorado’s state history. He and his people lived along the Front Range, often spending winters in Boulder Valley. In the fall of 1858 during the Colorado Gold Rush, early immigrants were welcomed by Niwot and his people to the area, even though it was Arapaho territory. Upon meeting the first settlers in the fall of 1858, Niwot is said to have stated his legendary Curse of the Boulder Valley. According to local lore, Chief Niwot said, “People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty.”

Chief Niwot wanted his tribe to coexist peacefully with the white man. He learned English, Cheyenne, and Sioux, which allowed him to communicate with white settlers and other tribes. However, peaceful relations between the southern Arapaho and the white prospectors did not last.

Racist Colorado Territorial Governor John Evans decided to get rid of the “Indian problem.” He ordered the peaceful southern Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes to relocate to Sand Creek, an area in southeast Colorado north of Fort Lyon (an area in far east Colorado close to Kansas, not to be confused with the town of Lyons that’s close to Boulder). Governor Evans then ordered the Third Colorado Cavalry, commanded by Colonel John Chivington, to patrol the land for hostile Indians.

Colonel Chivington and his men patrolled Colorado’s eastern plains for months without finding any hostile tribes. Frustrated, they headed to Sand Creek. Despite Major Edward Wynkoop, commander of Fort Lyons, stating that the Native people at Sand Creek were peaceful, Chivington and his men attacked the Araphao camp the morning of Nov. 29, 1864. There are no exact statistics on the number of people who were killed that day, but most historians believe approximately 230 American Indians were killed during the Sand Creek Massacre, including Chief Niwot, and mostly women, children, and the elderly.

Sand Creek

President Abraham Lincoln, bogged down by the Civil War, called for a Congressional investigation into the tragedy. Congress ruled the “gross and wanton” incident a “massacre” rather than a “battle.” Chivington was reprimanded for his actions and lost his commission, Governor Evans was removed from office, and Colorado was placed under martial law. The Sand Creek Massacre site is now designated as a National Historic Site.

Today, we remember Chief Niwot with all the references to his name and statues scattered around the boulder area. AstroTours happens at the “Boulder Valley Ranch trailhead” Chief Niwot’s legendary Curse is of the entire Boulder Valley. Chief Niwot is believed to have said: “People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty.”

The first half of the curse is as true then as it is today. The beauty of the Boulder Valley is definitely eye-catching and has caught the eyes of people from all over the world that move here. If you’ve been on an Astro Tour you’re definitely well aware of the beauty both on earth and in the heavens above the Boulder Valley and probably wish to stay there longer taking in its beauty. Unfortunately the *curse* part is also all too real these days with people moving to Boulder, Longmont, Niwot, Gunbarrel, Lyons, and everywhere in between not only is the development hard on the land and natural resources but it’s taking away the pristine sky above our community with light pollution.

So next time you visit the Boulder Valley be wary of this curse. It's a captivating land but don’t let the beauty of the valley be its undoing. Practice Leave No Trace principles and limit your light pollution and maybe we can undo the curse.

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Boulder_Valley

https://www.nps.gov/sand/learn/historyculture/index.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20110719202332/http://www.getboulder.com/visitors/articles/southernarapahoe.html

This post was taken heavily from the Visit Longmont article below. I think the original ending is hilarious how it says this land is cursed because people keep coming here soooooo... you should come here too 😊

https://www.visitlongmont.org/things-to-do/museums-history/haunted-history/chief-niwot-and-the-left-hand-curse/

Venus

Watching the sky just after sunset you may be noticing the brightest star that appears over the western horizon. This “star” is actually a planet, Venus.

cloud patterns on Venus

Venus is the third brightest naturally occurring object in our sky (after the Sun and Moon) due to having a thick atmosphere with clouds that reflect sunlight really well. Venus is the closest planet to the Earth and about the same size as Earth both of which also attribute to its brightness.

Venus's movement in the sky over months

The key to understanding Venus’s movement in our sky is to remember it’s an interior planet which means it travels around closer to the Sun in an orbit interior to ours. It takes Venus a little over 7 months to travel around the Sun where it takes Earth 12 months. This means every year Venus will pass us on the inside lane at least once. Right now Venus is catching up and will pass us on the inside lane on January 9th 2022. This is called ‘inferior solar conjunction’ and means the Sun, Venus, and Earth will be in alignment. We won’t be able to see it pass us as it will be too close to the Sun to observe. Here in the Front Range, we will stop being able to see Venus in our evening sky in late December due to the mountains covering anything low on the western horizon.

We can’t watch Venus pass us, but right now we can watch it move in for the pass. If you watch the sunset every week or so until December you will see Venus getting closer and closer to the horizon. A few days after inferior solar conjunction (January 9th 2022) we will start seeing Venus on the other side of the Sun in our sky just before sunrise. Watching the Sun rise starting in February you will see Venus climb higher and higher in the morning sky. Venus never travels further than 47 degrees from the Sun. Because of this we only notice Venus at sunset or sunrise when the Sun is blocked by the horizon letting Venus shine in the sky. One small exception to this is during a solar eclipse when the Sun is blocked by the Moon. Some may have noticed Venus next to the Sun during the 2017 solar eclipse.

Phases of Venus

Looking at Venus with a decent pair of binoculars you will see that it currently appears as a crescent. This is because just like the Moon, Venus has phases. Because Venus is currently coming toward us, we can see a portion of Venus that is illuminated by the Sun and a portion that is in darkness (night) facing away from the Sun. The illuminated portion will continue to shrink until Venus is in inferior solar conjunction when we won’t see Venus just like we don’t see the Moon at New Moon. Then in February as we watch Venus rise before the Sun we will also see the illuminated crescent grow larger, if we check in weekly with binoculars.

If you want to see Venus up close in a big telescope Book an AstroTour in November to be sure to catch it before it moves to the morning sky not to be seen on a tour again until 2022.