But when I started picking favourites and knowing which of these instruments was the right tool for a particular job, I knew I’d hit on something more than just my next great observing fix…

(more in the full entry at escience.ca …)

But after years of trying to go stargazing from Canada’s largest, least crowded, least stinky hot spring, the clouds parted for more than a few hours and we FINALLY had success, as you can see from this view of the skies over said springs (above, with the springs themselves, inset.)

If you’re interested in stargazing from the hot springs, be advised that you get more steam than sky, through the experience of seeing ANYTHING from these luxuriously warm waters in the dead of winter is pretty cool.

For a more serious view of the stars over Kootenay National Park, there are lots of observing sites but for the best view from some place warm in the snowy season, book the Columbia Suite or Eagle’s Nest at Chalet Europe, perched atop one of the highest points in the town of Radium, the place has the best views of the Columbia Valley below and skies above, clear of what light pollution there is from the town and the otherwise-awesome hot springs.

Happy New Year!

Though the observatory officially opened at the end of August, I thought it would be nifty to share some of the construction photos here.

In these images, Friends of Cypress Hills Park head honcho – and mastermind of this project – Gerald Gartner helps work on and supervise the installation of the door on the dome of the observatory on their magnitude-7.5 observing campground.

You can read more about this Canadian astronomy Mecca in the latest issue of Sky News (you have to buy or subscribe to the magazine and can do so at www.skynews.ca Print and digital subscriptions are both $26 Cdn – which, by the way, makes a great Christmas gift or stocking stuffer for the outdoorsperson and/or sky-fancier on your list ; )

CORRECTION: The Sky News image of the finished observatory at night is credited to me – Peter McMahon. The credit should read: “Saskatchewan Ministry of Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport/Paul Austring Photography”

Resources (Web links from Sky News magazine column)

Cypress Hills maps

Friends of Cypress Hills Park

Cypress Park Resort Inn

The astronomy event was attended by a total of approximately 80-100 people as part of a slate of evening activities at the symposium, which regularly attracts more than 1,000 delegates from conservation authorities from around Ontario and Canada.

After giving a talk on the water beyond Earth, we went outside and used Canon 15×50 Image Stabilizer binoculars, a Sky Watcher Heritage P130 reflecting telescope, an Sky Watcher Black Diamond 80 mm refracting scope, and a 318 mm (12.5 inch) Sky Watcher reflector.

My presentation was called “WATER: Beyond the Earth, Among the Stars” which looked at sources of H2O on Mars, our Moon, comets and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

Afterwards, what was predicted to be a very cloudy night cleared up, we got a chance to look at LIVE views of Jupiter’s water-bearing moons Callisto and Europa, which I’d talked about earlier.

The Latornell conservation symposium is held each year at Alliston, Ontario’s Nottawasaga Inn, voted Ontario’s #1 family golf resort and is the largest event of its kind for conservation authorities.

I was feeling a bit melancholy at the end of this month – and not due to the end of the warm season here in Ontario, or the ominous approach of Halloween (which I actually really love.) I was mourning the end of what felt like one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments – Like a kid at the end of a great season of summer camp, not knowing if they’ll ever be back:

(Above: The river widens at midnight below Jasper’s Athebasca Falls (click for full-res to see the extent of stars. Image: Peter McMahon)

For most of October, I spent the month living in the Canadian Rockies as astronomy-writer-in-residencefor Jasper National Park – I’d proposed and helped create the world’s largest “astronomy park” or dark sky preserve there the year before.

Yuichi and I presenting to a crowd of about 100 at Jasper Park Lodge's Mountain Galleries on Oct 21

Sharing astronomy in the mountains

While in Jasper this month, I worked on astronomy-related writing projects (my next column for Sky News magazine and a few proposals for new kids books I’d been asked to do by my publisher.) I also gave what averaged out to an astronomy talk nearly every business day (from “wilderness astronomy” destinations across Canada, to space tourism for kids 9-99, to something I came up with for the restaurants in the park called “2011: A Space Entrée”)

I also did more than a dozen day and night-time stargazing sessions with several hundred visitors to the park and Jasper residents. In almost every case, the skies were clear enough to train telescopes and  image-stabilized binoculars from Telescopes.ca as well as GPS starfinders and iPad apps on Jupiter (and 3-4 of its 63-known moons), the Perseus Double star cluster, the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and more. In the image here, we checked out fine details on the Moon with two large 10″ Dobsonian telescopes.

Moonlight over the falls from Bridge 1 at Maligne Canyon in Jasper National Park (the area at upper-left is directly overhead, while the area at lower right is two degrees from the photographer’s shoes. Image: Peter McMahon)

The experience also afforded me the chance to photograph Jasper at night with a new 6.5mm fisheye lens that let me to capture moonrise over waterfalls and galaxies rising over canyons.

RASC Edmonton astronomer looks through Peter's Skywatcher Heritage 130 (courtesy Telescopes.ca) on the VIA Rail trip to the Jasper Dark Sky Festival on Oct 21

I even got to pull off some stunts, like showing folks telescope views of the Sun and the Moon on a moving train that was taking them to Jasper’s inaugural dark sky festival.

Just the beginning…

When I think of all the first happening in this park and the crowds already gathering for a look through the telescope eyepieces, I start to dream of the historical plaques that might mention Jasper’s long history as a night sky destination…and some of the people I know in the coming decades and beyond:

Jasper Dark Sky Festival attendees view the International Space Station passing overhead on Oct 22, some using Canon IS Image Stabilizer binoculars from Telescopes.ca

People like Gloria Keyes-Brady, Parks Canada’s head of interpreters in Jasper, who first got excited about a dark sky designation as I started to describe what it entailed back in March 2010.

Or Jasper marketing manager Rogier Gruys, who spent every possible opportunity on every clear night for half a year photographing and taking light meter readings for putting together Jasper’s DSP application.

Or park head interpreter Brian Catto, who carried out the bulk of the actual astronomy interpretive programming in the park during and after its record-breaking designation.

Or Tourism Jasper CEO Maggie Davison, who constantly asked “How can we make this happen” on everything from bringing me in as astro-writer-in-residence to creating magical experiences for dark sky festival attendees.

Jasper's Athabasca Falls in the moonlight in early October, under (from left-to-right) The Big Dipper, Draco, Gemini, and Orion

Or Tourism Jasper CEO Maggie Davison, who constantly asked “How can we make this happen” on everything from bringing me in as astro-writer-in-residence to creating magical experiences for dark sky festival attendees.

Special thanks HAS to go out to two of my sponsors in-particular:

Telescopes.ca for having the faith in me as a brand to loan and (in many cases) give me telescopes and binoculars to show people the sky in all these wonderful locations. And to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, for believing in me and this project enough to supply in-kind for part of my food AND to put me up in a suite to live, work, and otherwise be based out of, for the entire month of October.

October stars above the pool at the main lodge on Lac Beauvert at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge

Bye-bye mountain : (

The unhappy task of watching the mountains recede in my rear-view mirror came after what seemed like another lifetime.

On the way out of the park, I looked back with glassy eyes at the entrance to the world’s largest dark sky preserve – not because I thought I’d never be back, but because I knew I’d always be back.

(Brian is Jasper National Park’s head interpreter and told me – rightly so – I was insane…well, perhaps overly-optimistic, to think I could get a shot of the water down in this canyon AND the stars above.

Turns out all I needed was the most useless lens on Earth for doing anything but shooting stars above canyons ; )

This shot of the stars & Moon over Maligne Canyon was taken just a few days before Jasper National Park and Dark Sky Preserve’s inaugural dark sky festival…

Taken with a 6.5mm fisheye lens, with a 180-degree field of view, the channel of water before (above) the falls here is horizontal. The falls (as you may imagine) are vertical. Then the rest below is horizontal.

The pool shimmering in the moonlight at bottom is almost where my feet were…except nearly 200 feet below.

But when I got invited to serve as Jasper National Park’s astronomy-writer-in-residence for October and put-up for the month at Canada’s #1 golf resort, I couldn’t resist posing for this picture (and maybe even getting a little more interested in this outdoor pursuit.)

While the Jasper Park Lodge doesn’t (yet) offer golfing under the stars, the resort is ramping up dark sky programming during  Jasper’s Dark Skies Month (again, this Oct), including three talks and stargazing sessions (Oct 7, 14, & 18 @ 8 pm starting at the main entrance) at the lodge led by your’s truly.

You’ll also be able to see the latest images of the night sky over Jasper by me and friend/colleague Yuichi Takasaka at JPL’s Mountain Galleries, in amongst several new pieces of dark-sky-inspired art by the gallery’s represented artists.

You can see another one of my pictures of JPL’s golf course at night – with the Pleiades (left) and Jupiter (right) rising over the green – as the new pic advertising the resorts Dark Sky festival package.

Originally, this was just going to be a Facebook post, but it’s gotten such a reception (about 20 responses in 38 minutes) that I thought I’d post it here with some more information.

This 30-second exposure was made with a Canon DSLR using a 6.5 mm f3.5 Opteka fish-eye prime lens.

Note the stars reflected in Lac Beauvert at the shores of the lodge, whose canoe dock, pool, and main lodge can be seen at far right.

If you’re in the area, you can come to one of my wilderness-sky-talks and dark sky preserve observing sessions at Jasper Park Lodge, Oct 14 or 18 at 8 pm OR during the Jasper Dark Sky Festival, Oct 21-23.

Special thanks to Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (featured here in this Oct 7 image at right, er left, if you’re reading this on Facebook) for putting me up for the month of October while Tourism Jasper brings me in to serve as Jasper National Park and Dark Sky Preserve’s “Sky Guy in-residence”.

The newly-designated astronomy park – the world’s largest, by a factor of ten – officially opened October 1 with a gala evening on Maligne Lake. Jasper’s mayor Richard Ireland, park superintendent Greg Fenton, the president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and local MPs gave in-person and remotely-delivered speeches of congratulations.

A glitzy send-off for the world’s largest dark sky preserve

Also on-hand were RASC light pollution-abatement chair Robert Dick and RASC Edmonton Centre light pollution abatement guru and Winter Light star party organizer Sherrilyn Jahrig (who – along with Parks Canada’s Gloria Keyes-Brady and Jasper head interpreter Brian Catto - were instrumental in providing guidance on the dark sky designation application, led by Parks’ Rogier Gruys)

Maligne Lake is pictured here (above, image: Yuichi Takasaka, blue-moon.ca) last July during a clear night when Yuichi and I were there for him to shoot for our Canadian Geographic article.

Giving popular talks on light pollution and Canada’s growing network of dark sky preserves (including this one) were myself and RASC Edmonton Centre member/award-winning U Alberta engineering physicist Warren Findlay, who (along with Jahrig  and others) co-founded Alberta’s other dark sky preserve at Elk Island National Park, just east of Edmonton.

The skies here so far…

It’s been touch-and-go with brief clear spells every few nights (like this shot from the pool at the Lodge) and the Draconid meteor shower has been drowned-out by the almost-full-moon. But statistically, this makes me feel pretty hopeful that we’re getting the clouds and rain over with, in anticipation of the Jasper Dark Sky Festival (more on that soon in future posts) which is set to take place under moonless skies, Oct 21-24.

I won’t lie: living at Canada’s #1 golf resort for a month isn’t a though gig in many ways (I’m constantly being told that by reporters and resort guests with an encouraging smile on their faces) though the schedule has been pretty fast-paced:

Down-to-business

Since my talk on Oct 1, I’ve been meeting and consulting with folks from various tourism-driven businesses, giving and preparing for upcoming talks, and just gave a talk here at Jasper Park Lodge last night (some of the participants of that talk and night sky observing session are pictured above looking at the moon over the JPL canoe docks with me last night).

Creating magic…

The main reason I’m here – which really would be the case in any locale – is to facilitate planned and impromptu chances for as many people as possible to see how cool the night sky can be. Whether using portable telescopes or GPSs and iPads to get people from all over North America excited about the stars here, I’ve been absolutely floored at the response at both big-ticket events and “random acts of astronomy”

If you’re reading this and you’re going to be in Alberta or even the Rockies this month, drop me a line (via the Contact Us section here on the site) and come out for a gander at the universe with us from the world’s biggest, darkest* astronomy park!

(according to the Wikipedia entry on dark sky preserves, Jasper is tied with two other dark sky preserves for being the darkest such area on Earth)

(Web resources at bottom of post)

Though it has fewer venomous snakes than Grasslands dark sky preserve, the ones here near the harbour town of Tobermory are a protected species (you can actually get in trouble with authorities for harming them.) Thankfully, no snakes emerged and our 20-lb mascot Winston was snuggled up in the motel far from any dangerous tall grass.

Meanwhile, local astronomy guru Rod Steinacher was kind enough to spend the night showing me around the local stargazing haunts and he did NOT disappoint!

From the harbour (photo above) near the ferry docks to the Grotto to a Parks Canada lookout tower that lifted us 80 feet above the sometimes pesky treeline, the evening was an embarrassment of riches.

Here (left) is a photo of me weeing away the chance to see a brilliant meteor that the timer on the camera caught but I didn’t, as I got ready to browse the sky via the Star Map augmented reality app on my iPad.

For a review of the blow-you-away breakie we encountered the next morning, check out the last entry in my CAA blog on the subject (breakie, not astronomy or Tobermory ; )

For more on the best stargazing spots in the area, stay tuned (will update on our Facebook, this site, and directly in this post) to my regular dark sky column in Sky News magazine...

More on dark sky initiatives in the Bruce…

Resources (Web links from Sky News magazine column)

Bruce Peninsula National Park maps

Fathom Five National Marine Reserve maps

Restaurants: The Fish & Chip Place, The Lighthouse, Craigie’s Harbourview Restaurant 

Grasslands stargazing locations (you’ll also find the dates for current star parties here)

Little Tub Harbour: Shopping by the bay in Tobermory

Tobermory accommodations and camping locations

Gordon’s Park Dark Sky Preserve and event schedule