Story Ideas
NOW STARRING IN THE NIGHT SKY OVER THE KERN RIVER VALLEY ...
People may visit Hollywood to see celebrities, but they should head just 200 miles north to catch sight of a different kind of star – hundreds of billions of them, in fact.
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Copyright © Casey Christie |
The night skies surrounding the valley are some of the darkest and clearest in California. According to the International Dark Sky Association’s website, Onyx, in the Kern’s South Fork Valley, is the darkest place in the state. Cleardarksky.com lists Canebrake, Walker Pass Campground, and Kennedy Meadows as three of the best star-gazing sites in the state.
Glancing upward into the night, visitors will marvel at the summer Milky Way, whose center is directly overhead at 28,000 miles away. In the autumn, other galaxies reveal themselves as the Milky Way advances in the sky, while winter skies reveal the famed cluster galaxy’s nebulous spiral arms reaching out from its center. Gazing upward on a spring night, visitors may view cluster galaxies beyond the Milky Way, which no longer dominates the skies above.
Telescope sales have increased dramatically over the past three years, ever since Mars’s close approach in August 2003, when the Red Planet was closer than ever in recorded history, says Brad Berger, owner of Berger Brothers, a Long Island, New York-based retailer with an extensive telescope sales and astronomy department. He adds that today’s computer-aided telescopes have made star-gazing an even more popular pasttime.
With more and more amateur astronomers clamoring for dark places to go with their telescopes, the Kern River Valley is the best kept secret within "reasonable" driving distance from Los Angeles. With its recreational opportunities by day, and its heavenly constellations by night, it is indeed a stellar spot.
For more information about star-gazing in the Kern River Valley, contact the Kern River Valley Astronomy Club (www.geocities.com/krvac/index.htm).
