Go outside tonight, and look at the stars.
October is Hill Country Night Sky Month, a time to savor and appreciate the beauty of the cosmos and living where we can still to see it.
To help celebrate Night Sky Month, Blue Hole Regional Park and Wimberley Valley Dark Sky will host the annual Howl at the Moon Dance, Oct. 7, and a Blue Hole Star Party on Oct. 25.
But why wait? Clear and cooling weather is forecast, so grab your binoculars, find an open area, and look up. If you have an astronomy app or book to name the stars, great. If not, just enjoy the view.
“This time of year, the Milky Way goes literally straight over our heads, so it’s the best time to observe it,” says Jamie Kinscherff, of WVDS.
Here’s a great reason to look at the stars: because you can. Studies and reports consistently tell us that most Americans, about 80%, cannot see the Milky Way, the vast ocean of stars in which our Earth travels the universe. The Milky Way is all around us, as awe-inspiring and dream-inducing as ever, but becoming harder and harder to see.
In 2024, the Sierra Club stated that North American skies are brightening by 10 percent a year, and that Americans are rapidly losing our cultural heritage of a night sky filled with stars.
Millions of American children are growing up without ever having really seen the night sky, just the glare that hides it.
Fortunately for those of us in the Wimberley Valley, situated between the expanding glows of the nation’s 7th and 11th most populous cities, we can still see the Milky Way. Not as well as we could have a generation ago, perhaps not even as well as five years ago. But it is still there, and much of our community is invested in keeping it visible.
Doing so is called Night Sky Preservation. To Dawn Davies, Night Sky Program Manager for the Hill Country Alliance, that means doing “everything around ensuring the light that we put out is adhering to night sky principles, that it’s mindful and we are preserving as much of the natural beauty and heritage and awe and wonder that is a truly starry night sky.”
HCA declared October as Hill Country Night Sky Month in 2020, as have the cities of Wimberley and Woodcreek. Both Wimberley Valley towns have taken steps and enforced rules to curb light pollution, even as the area experiences the plusses and minuses of rapid development and tourism popularity.
Wimberley Valley Dark Sky, a volunteer group, formed in 2015 to earn official International Dark Sky Community designation from Dark Sky International (https://darksky.org/ ). WVDS achieved that goal and, in 2018, the Wimberley Valley became only the third community in Texas to get the designation, following Dripping Springs and Horseshoe Bay. Today there are 10 Texas Dark Sky Communities, with more working toward qualification, and 230 Dark Sky Places, including parks, sanctuaries, and other designations, around the world. WVDS still works to spread Dark Sky education and information at many city events.
A fun way to celebrate Dark Sky Month is with friends, family and lots of Wimberley Valley neighbors, and you have at least two good chances to do it at Blue Hole events co-hosted by WVDS.
Whimsy might be the best way to describe the annual Blue Hole Howl at the Moon Dance, 8 to 9p.m., Oct. 7.
“It’s purely for fun and the love of being outside in the moonlight,” says WVDS chair Greg Webb. “We have moon-inspired songs, with lots of kids and adults of all ages dancing free-form on the basketball court. Then at 8:30 pm, we all stop to howl at the moon together. We want to make them hear us all the way to downtown Wimberley. And they usually do.”
The big, full Harvest moon will rise at 7:28 p.m. that night. The Howl is on the basketball court on the park’s great circle around the soccer field.
By the way, Tuesday is also Howl at the Moon night all across Hays County and in other areas. All you have to do, wherever you are, is grab a few friends – or strangers – and go outside to howl in appreciation of a beautiful moon and night sky. If people look at you funny, tell them “The moon made us do it.”
The Fall Blue Hole Star Party is 6:45 to 9:30 p.m., Oct. 25. Activities begin at 6:45 pm with live music and songs by local favorites Jerry Burns and Andrew Hardin, both on acoustic guitar. As it gets darker, there will be a talk by Jamie Kinscherff about the stars on the night’s schedule.
“October is the transition between summer and winter, so we are going to see some summer constellations, such as Scorpius and Sagittarius, but we also see winter constellations such as The Great Square of Pegasus, and Cassiopea and Perseus,” Kinscherff says. “We should get a good view of Saturn in the early part of the evening. Neptune is up so some of the astronomers may try to catch a view of it with their telescopes.”
And of course, there will be the Milky Way. As always, the Star Party depends on good viewing weather. There is usually a large turnout, and lots of people bring chairs, blankets and even a picnic dinner. Parking is near the basketball court and around the park’s great circle drive. Please do not leave car lights on facing the soccer field.
Blue Hole Regional Park is located three minutes’ drive from downtown Wimberley at 333 BlueHole Lane, 78676.
Learn more about the night sky and WVDS events on the Wimberley Valley Dark Sky Facebook page. If you want to support Hill Country Night Sky efforts, you can donate to the Hill CountryAlliance Night Sky Fund at https://hillcountryalli-ance. org/nightskyfund/
