4 Celestial Events In North Dakota To Add To Your 2022 Stargazing Calendar
By Tori Jane|Published February 28, 2022
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Tori Jane
Author
Tori Jane is a storm chaser, writer, photographer, and the village idiot - in that order. When she's not out and about dancing with the meanest storms on planet Earth for funsies she can be found wandering, shooting landscapes, writing, editing photos, and otherwise up to no good. Legend has it that she can also be occasionally spotted typing up short bios in the third person, but those rumors are unsubstantiated.
North Dakota is a mysterious place full of intrigue and natural wonder. From earth to sky, it’s pure perfection – mother nature on her A-game; speaking of sky, there will be plenty of things up there to keep an eye out for during the coming months. We here in North Dakota are blessed with a very special natural gift: incredibly dark night skies, and thusly, some of the best stargazing opportunities in the world. Here are four epic night sky events in North Dakota to get excited about this year:
Most of North Dakota is pretty incredible when it comes to admiring the night sky, but there are certain places that are particularly wonderful for it - almost like they were made with stargazing specifically in mind.
We recommend wandering out to Theodore Roosevelt National Park or Crow Flies High Butte for some of the darkest skies in not just the state, but the entire country. You'll want to meander out there at least 30-50 minutes before whatever it is you're hoping to witness is slated to begin; giving your eyes time to adjust to some of the purest darkness in the nation is an art form that is easily perfected with patience and planning.
So, what's going on this year that's worth traveling to either of those places at night for?
Well, on May 30th and 31st, there might just be an epic, unique meteor shower filled with bright, relatively slow-moving (you know, for a chunk of comet hurtling through space anyway) meteors lighting up the sky.
Why? At this time, Earth will pass through a "cloud" of meteoroids that were spat out by a rapidly disintegrating comet named 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. The result is a brief, but potentially intense, bombardment of meteors streaking across the night sky, much to our delight. It could be minor, it could be major - it's one of those natural surprises that we love to get from time to time.
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Then, during the second half of June, the planets are going to align.
....well, some of them, anyway. Five planets will line up in the early-morning sky in an eastern-southeastern direction. Interestingly, the planets doing the "lining up" will be doing so in order: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Even cooler, the moon will be waning during this time and will appear to "greet" each planet on different mornings. The best time to view this is just before dawn, during morning civil twilight. Find out what time that will be with this handy calculator!
The moon will be officially full on July 13th at 2:38 p.m. EDT; nine hours and 37 minutes before that, however, it'll scoot right up to its closest point to Earth all year (a mind-blowingly close - in space terms - 221,900-ish miles away). The result is an awesome-looking, enormously huge full moon in the sky for us.
Finally, you can't miss the aurora borealis, which can be found in the sky year-round.
However, the best time to "chase" auroras is during winter, when the nights are long and particularly dark. The entire state is a great place to view them, though we do have to suggest TRNP again as an ideal viewing spot. Our favorite months for aurora spotting are from December to March. Your mileage may vary, but that's a good starting range.
North Dakota is an amazing state with so much to offer the folks who call it home.
After all, the only thing more incredible than our highly-visible, always-interesting night skies are our intensely colorful, ridiculously majestic stormy summer nights. Now those are worth writing home about.
What are your favorite night sky events in North Dakota? Which one is better in your opinion: night skies, or stormy sunsets? Tell us your thoughts in the comments! Want to explore more of North Dakota at night? Check out these incredible photos shot in our amazing state long after the sun has disappeared.
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