That steady, pale gold light low in the east after dark is not a star. It's Saturn, and for the next few weeks it rises a little earlier every evening, until it comes up in the east just as the sun goes down in the west. It's called an opposition, when Earth sits on the line between Saturn and the sun, and the planet stays visible all night, as close and bright as it gets all year. Close is relative: the light you are looking at left Saturn a little over an hour ago. To the eye it is just a point, but it is a point with rings, and any small telescope will show them.
The city's chokecherries are shading from red to nearly black, and that's ripeness. Too...
In the last weeks of August the evening sky fills with birds most people never look up to see...
The palm-length blue-and-green dragonflies patrolling the parks right now are darners, and...
This is a small shower and knowing that is half the point. Under a truly dark sky you might see...
From the first days of September the mountain valleys start to echo. Bull elk are in rut, and...
September 25 is the first night since spring that is longer than the day, and it happens a few...