Where Dark Skies Draw Star-Gazers, Wildfire Smoke Spoils the View

• Aug. 13, 2021Updated 1:50 p.m. ET

GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK — The high, lonesome dunes that tally up against the Rocky Mountains astatine 7,500 feet supra oversea level successful confederate Colorado are a long, agelong thrust from the closest streetlight, and aft dusk, the astir untainted acheronian and thin, adust aerial reveals conscionable however agleam the nighttime entity tin really be.

Stars pain fierce capable to formed shadows connected the sand. The halfway of the Milky Way is simply a blazing arch, soaring implicit the Continental Divide. Like different distant parts of the West, the dunes are usually an perfect spot to drawback the yearly summertime airy amusement enactment connected by the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks this week.

But not truthful overmuch this year. The West is connected fire, the entity is afloat of smoke, and connected galore nights, adjacent successful the darkest corners of the West, the meteors that erstwhile slashed crossed the heavens with fiery strength lone pulse faintly done the murk — if they tin beryllium seen astatine all.

“It’s been horrible — I’ve ne'er seen it truthful smoky arsenic this year,” Bob Bohley, a unpaid astronomy ranger who has been giving evening prima presentations astatine Great Sand Dunes National Park for 9 years, said conscionable earlier starting his nightly ranger speech connected Thursday. “Some nights it’s been truthful heavy that adjacent the brightest stars were hard to marque out. I would conscionable constituent successful the absorption of a constellation and anticipation folks would spot something.”

Great Sand Dunes is 1 of 27 nationalist parks and monuments, astir each successful the intermountain West, that are designated arsenic dark-sky parks, wherever airy contamination from cities is scant. But successful caller years, the occurrence play — arsenic summertime is present often called — has meant that the accidental for stargazing depends not conscionable connected the signifier of the moon, but besides connected however galore quadrate miles are burning upwind.

Climate alteration has made wildfires much communal and much intense. More than 105 ample fires successful the West this twelvemonth person already torched a full country the size of Connecticut, sending millions of tons of good ash into the sky. That ash tin enactment airborne for months, spreading a fume surface that acts similar a cataract connected the nighttime entity implicit thousands of miles.

Star watchers person noticed a chiseled dimming arsenic acold East arsenic Martha’s Vineyard successful Massachusetts successful caller weeks. With immense blazes similar the Dixie Fire successful California inactive acold from contained, and a forecast of scorching weather for overmuch of the West implicit the adjacent week, the celestial presumption isn’t expected to amended immoderate clip soon.

To beryllium sure, the clarity of the heavens ranks debased connected the database of impacts from the fires ravaging the West. Hundreds of radical person mislaid their homes, and fume blanketing the portion has sent increasing numbers of radical to the hospital.

“A earthy starry entity is the embodiment of awe,” said Bettymaya Foott, a photographer of the nighttime sky and manager of engagement for the International Dark-Sky Association. “When you are faced with the infinite, it’s an incredibly humbling experience.”

Ms. Foott said she would astir apt miss the highest of the meteor ablution this week due to the fact that of persistent fume implicit her location successful southwestern Colorado.

Though the relation has focused connected preventing airy pollution, she said, it is starting to recognize that clime alteration besides poses a menace to wide acheronian skies.

“It’s each connected,” she said. “Just arsenic airy contamination and fume don’t respect boundaries, the consequences of however we grip clime alteration question far.”

If the stars mislaid their luster, overmuch of the state mightiness not notice. NASA estimates that lone astir 17 percent of Americans unrecorded successful acheronian agrarian places wherever they tin spot the Milky Way.

Colorado’s precocious terrain and arid clime person agelong fixed it a peculiar transportation to the nighttime sky. One of the state’s authoritative songs, “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver, was inspired by an August nighttime astatine a precocious upland lake, erstwhile the vocalist was awakened by the dazzling starlight and had a transcendent acquisition watching the “raining fire” of the Perseid meteors shooting by overhead.

On Friday, a acold beforehand is apt to propulsion immoderate of the fume retired of the Rockies, providing a model of wide viewing. But with large fires inactive burning connected the West Coast, forecasters accidental the clarity whitethorn not past long.

For galore visitors to the West’s dark-sky parks, the committedness of diamond-glittered skies are a cardinal attraction. On Thursday night, arsenic Mr. Bohley, the ranger, prepared for the evening astronomy talk, a antheral from Philadelphia stopped by to accidental that helium had timed his abrogation particularly to beryllium successful a dark-sky parkland astatine the highest of the Perseid shower, and asked the ranger if it was OK to enactment retired each nighttime connected the dunes, watching.

“Oh, yeah, we should spot plentifulness tonight,” Mr. Bohley replied. “It looks similar we’re yet catching a break.”

A stiff East upwind swept down implicit the mountains conscionable aft sunset, driving the drifting fume backmost to the West. The entity implicit the parkland grew wide — oregon astatine slightest clearer.

As acheronian settled in, a tiny assemblage of visitors gathered astir and Mr. Bohley lifted his eyes upward, guiding them to planets and galaxies, achromatic dwarfs and reddish giants.

The nighttime sky, helium told them, is not conscionable a spectacle, but a captious portion of taste heritage. Peering up astatine the stars and wondering is arsenic past and cosmopolitan arsenic creation oregon opus oregon music. It is simply a portion of the indispensable quality experience, helium said

Right connected cue, a meteor coursed crossed the sky, leaving a long, silent, silvery tail. In unison, the full assemblage sighed, “Oooooooh.”