Night Sky: Don’t believe the hype
Click-bait articles try to get readers excited about non-events like lunar eclipse and unremarkable meteor showers. Don’t be fooled.
Nature
Farewell, my lovely
It’s almost over. Venus has been dazzling and delighting us for months now, the best apparition of the evening star since 2004. It’s still amazingly bright in the northwest during the first couple of hours after sunset. It’s hard to believe that this will now change so rapidly.
Mohonk Preserve continues to track weather data despite absence of volunteers
“What’s crazy to me is that we were eight degrees above average this March, and it’s not a record-breaking month! When you’re eight degrees above the 124-year average and you’re the sixth warmest on record, that’s wild,” said Dr. Elizabeth Long, director of conservation science at the Daniel Smiley Research Center.
Do ecological research as a family project, virtually, via Cary Institute’s 2020 Hudson Data Jam
The 2020 Hudson Data Jam competition will be 100 percent virtual. Cary Institute educators will be offering informational webinars and instructional videos to help parents, students and educators learn how to work with data and create a project that clearly communicates the data trends you discover. Participants must register by May 13 and submit their project results online by May 27.
Fossils of the Catskill Sea
Illustrations from a nineteenth-century geology textbook show typical marine shellfish fossils of Devonian age, a time period running from 419 to 369 million years ago. That’s the age of almost all the rocks here in the Catskills. Those fossils speak to geologists of a time when all of our region lay beneath the waves of a shallow sea, sometimes called the Catskill Sea.
The evening star at its very best
This week, Venus has reached its greatest separation from the sun while standing high above where the sun set. These are rare perfect conditions that make Venus appear as high up as is ever possible. But on top of that, Venus is also at its most brilliant.
Exploring the Shaupeneak Ridge in Esopus
While every imaginable event has been canceled, closed or postponed until further notice, the one thing that remains constant and steady and available is the great outdoors. There are endless opportunities here.
In quest of a true spectacle
We all enjoy sky-spectacles, and especially those that do not require a telescope. Some are not too frustratingly rare, such as brilliant meteors and rainbows. And we can greatly increase the odds of seeing these if we know when they’re most likely.
Night Sky: The amazing Seven Sisters
Who hasn’t heard of the Seven Sisters,also known as the Pleiades? It’s the most beautiful star cluster and the most famous. It’s obvious to the naked eye and stunning through binoculars, and these nights it’s unusually easy to find.
DEC closes Kaaterskill Falls access, citing need for social distancing
The falls, viewing platform, and access trails are relatively small areas that are currently concentrating persons together, preventing safe social distancing at the site, said the DEC.