![]() ![]() A few miles up the road is the Sawtooth National Recreation Area visitor center, which has bathrooms open 24 hours to accommodate stargazers. (Fees at the multiple campgrounds in the area range from $18-$24 per night look here for a list). From Ketchum, drive up Idaho state Route 75 through the Wood River Valley. ![]() Idaho’s Dark Sky Reserve lies north of the Sun Valley Resort in Ketchum, in the south-central part of the state, a region where you can also hike, fish, go kayaking and paddleboarding, and view waterfalls. Olivia Duin, 18, warms up for stargazing at the Lodge at Summer Lake, Lake County, in a parcel of real estate often called Oregon’s “empty quarter.” She is facing the 3,000-foot Winter Ridge. Here are nine other great places to see thousands of stars, planets, star clusters, meteors, man-made satellites, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Milky Way. Be aware: savvy travelers are already snapping up lodgings from Crater Lake National Park to the town of Burns, in the Oregon Outback. Southern Oregon is smack in the middle of the upcoming annular solar eclipse on October 14. The state’s darkest-sky site, Kowalik said, is in the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge just outside of Lakeview, a town near the California state line. ![]() A park ranger identifies a constellation for visitors at a stargazing program in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Together, the two displays should be a good show. Another prominent shower, the Delta Aquarids, whose point of origin or radiant is the constellation Aquarius, will peak around July 29 to 30. This year the Perseids should be best seen from July 17 to August 24, peaking around August 13. Stargazing is best when there’s a new moon or during meteor showers, such as the Perseids, a prolific annual display associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle, which appears to originate from the constellation Perseus. ”The first time you see the Milky Way, you don’t forget it.” “We are passionate about this,” said Bill Kowalik, a retired geologist who chairs the IDSA’s Oregon chapter. Thanks to the social distancing of recent years, stargazing has exploded in popularity even though as much as 80 percent of all Americans have never seen a star-filled sky, according to. The group has submitted a 160-page application to the IDSA for this tract in Oregon to join 17 other locations around the world as official sanctuaries, but many local, state, and federal agencies must sign on first. “What we are doing is preserving the best left in the lower 48,” said Bob Hackett, executive director of Travel Southern Oregon. Star trails over Summer Lake Hot Springs, the Oregon outback (Photo: Joey Hamilton/Travel Oregon) Pending approval by the Tucson-based nonprofit International Dark Sky Association (IDSA), the area would become the largest officially recognized stargazing sanctuary in the world. If a group of avid astronomers have their way, the combined 11.4 million acres (17,187 square miles) in these counties will become a Dark Skies Sanctuary, a designation for visual quality and remoteness. Nighttimes we looked at the skies-or tried to. Instead, we settled for a scramble in an up-to 70-foot-deep ravine aptly named Crack in the Ground near Christmas Valley, in the northern part of the county. When we arrived in the area for several days last month, snow still covered the ground down to about 3,000 feet, so high-altitude hiking was out. The entire parcel of real estate is called the Oregon Outback, or its “empty quarter” because of the sparse population, vast ranges, and high deserts. Lake County is the westernmost of Oregon’s three southeastern counties. There are hot springs, 300 species of birds-and world-class dark skies. My daughter and I were in Lake County, Oregon, a region that is savage but lovely, with sagebrush, juniper, and bunch grasses, and several fish and wildlife areas. ![]() To the east hung the bright orange star Arcturus. Leo was directly above me in one direction, the Big Dipper in the other. Auriga was already rising in the west, with its brightest star, Capella, gleaming against the black. Then around 10:30 on a cold April night, the clouds lifted, and the constellations swung into view. I’d been waiting five days for the Oregon skies to light up. First it was the moon, then it was cloudy, then it rained. ![]()
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