Dark Ranger Telescope Tours

04/30/2025

Predawn lows are finally staying above freezing so it's safe to assume we are done for the season using our amazing Volvo L25e electric loader to push snow. Soon our feisty, "green" beast will be working tirelessly on concrete fabrication. It might take almost a decade to build our epic, future observatory, but our dreams are within reach thanks Volvo Construction Equipment North America and Block Moulds.

In the meantime, while the 3 observatories we currently staff are a little bit spartan, our 30 BIG telescopes are as amazing as Southern Utah's dark night sky we strive to protect!

Q: Exactly why do astronomers need BEVE (Battery Electric Heavy Equipment)?
Short Answer A): Didn't I mention our telescopes are very BIG?
Short Answer B): Doesn't everybody?
Longer Answer: Please watch the vid.

Finally we offer an astronomical thanks to Dreampilot Films for making us, our landscape, and especially our Volvo look stunning.

Meet Kevin Poe, the owner of Dark Ranger Telescope Tours, where sustainability meets efficiency. With the Volvo electric L25 loader, Kevin powers his operati...

01/16/2025

There's a strange trick of the mind where when a person sees a bolide (i.e., meteor breaking up in the higher atmosphere, above where even the roar of rockets bound for space, can be heard), they often report the associated sound of an explosion. Apparently the brain can manufacture an audio experience that didn't really happen because when something looks like it has exploded (where depth perception can't confirm the extreme distance) it decides that you should have heard an explosion, so it tells you that you did.

This hypothesis exists because when kill-joy astronomers or other geeks go around checking nearby audio recording devices after such events, they often rediscover what they already know, which is high atmosphere which is not dense enough to perpetuate compression waves (aka "sound") is still "abrasive" enough to create enough friction to atomize most things falling from space smaller than a bowling ball.

This time the noise is real, because this meteor became a "meteorite" (i.e., making it all they down to the ground) by literally hitting the bricks.

When playing the video, you should probably be sitting down, because the noise from this small impactor is.... well... astronomical!

Sound of Meteorite Striking Earth Captured for First Time by Ring Camera | PetaPixel

For the first time, a Ring doorbell camera has captured the sight and sound of a meteorite crashing to Earth.

11/19/2024

Why are you goofing around on Facebook when you should be watching SpaceX's #6 launch of the Starship and booster?

This launch, though still suborbital, will include the tower graspers "catch" of the booster and a daytime (fully visible) destructive splashdown of the Starship itself north of Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yd_cpPP4fE

10/14/2024

Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas sets over Wilson Peak, a beautiful knoll west of Bryce Cayon National Park which also overlooks future home of the Dark Ranger Observatory.

This comet is headed back out to the Oort Cloud (i.e. gravitational edge of our Solar System where some 50 million comets incircle us in a gigantic cloud) and it won't be back for another 80,000 years.

Don't worry there's still a couple more nights to see this amazing site as long as you have VERY low western horizons and good dark sky, like the Dark Ranger Observatory does.

Book your telescope tour tickets now!
https://www.darkrangertelescopetours.com/public.html

Monday, Oct. 14 has the added excitement of an appulse (very close approach) of Saturn and our Moon, where both worlds will be visible I'm the same eyepiece!

10/08/2024

We got a blast of solar plasma last night but as always, Earth's magnetic field deflected it to the North Pole. You might know this phenomena, as the Aurora or more specifically the Northern Lights.

This is not a common occurance this far south, especially during the last 4 of the 11-year-long cycles our Sun's energy output has been lower than average. But if the Sun's activity is truly going to increase to normal levels in this next cycle, Aurora will be more common again. At least for all who make the effort to escape the light pollution of civilization.

It's too bad we didn't take the climate crisis more seriously when our Sun was giving us a break huh? And yet, we can expect the denialists will nevertheless twist their logic and integrity into pretzels to say it's always only been our Sun's fault. "Really? All the warming for the last 45 years was also the Sun's fault, while the Sun was cooling?" Bless their hearts...

Anyway, these beautiful events are especially memorable for those who spend most of their time in the lower lattitudes. What's more we Dark Rangers like to take a moment between snapping photographs of the aurora to remind ourselves and any others who stay out with us past 11pm (which is when aurora is most active), how "Whew! We almost all died!"

That would be the extreme consequences of living above ground, during such an event if not for the protection of our planet's wonderful, but fragile atmosphere and our hopefully venerable magnetic field.

04/08/2024

Our Solar Eclipse Live Stream:

01/16/2024

Happy New Years from Dark Ranger Telescope Tours!

Our New Year's resolution is to start merchandising in 2024. If you like this poster / t-shirt, it will be available starting in February. On the other hand, if you hate it, buy one for all the people you don't like. Either way, I assure you, we won't produce anything worse. :-)

11/26/2023

Can't wait to go?

Mars in 4K - The Ultimate Edition. The best images of Mars in stunning 4k 60fps. ------------------------------------------------------------------------A fe...

11/24/2023

Avoid the hell of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and instead give them the holiday gift of the heavens!

All gift certificates 25% off the regular price!

explains private tours both on-site and off-site

11/18/2023

What'cha you doing tonight?

Did you know tonight is the Leonids meteor shower? If last night is any indication it should be a good one! Because, last night we saw a beautiful meteor that slowly crossed the sky for a full 3 seconds showering golden sparks as it burned up above us.

Better question: What'cha doing at dawn tomorrow morning? After staying up late for the meteor shower?

There's not much that a Dark Ranger will wake up at 6:00am (MST) for, but I will tomorrow! Because if all goes well, tomorrow will be one of those weird days in history that your grand-kids will keep asking you about, and in retrospect you will wonder why it didn't seem important in the moment. Succeed or fail the media will barely cover this milestone for humanity

SpaceX will attempt a sub-orbital, orbit of Earth with the largest and most powerful rocket ever made -- Starship Heavy Booster -- a vehicle with enough "oomph" to not only put a permanent base on the Moon (Step 1), but help humans reach (Step 2) and occupy Mars (Step 3).

Suborbital, orbit means that instead of going up 250 miles (orbital elevation of the International Space Staton and the Chinese Space Station) where gravity, at that altitude, pulls a spaceship effortless around the planet, SpaceX's Starship (without crew) will fly eastward from south Texas, constantly fighting Earth's gravity at a sub-orbital altitude, so that the vehicle's ability to course correct will be taxed to the maximum, until it splashes down NE of Hawaii. What's more, to make it extra difficult, and to maximize safety for such a difficult test, it's path will dodge and weave over the planet's oceans to minimize the amount of time Starship actually travels overland.

As you my recall last year, the first attempt failed well enough that it drew that attention of extra evaluation from both the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife. The amount power the booster produced was underestimated and caused considerable damage to the launch pad, blasting chunks of concrete into evacuated parking lots and home to important wildlife species marshlands. Then the booster failed to separate from the Starship so that Starship's engines couldn't engage and like a big anchor the booster pulled Starship back down topsy-turvy, where both had to be self-destructed high above the launch pad.

If successful tomorrow, SpaceX and this history is only just beginning to make will cause those pesky grand-kids to demand to know what your were doing when this momentous event transpired.

And this Dark Ranger will NOT have to say "Uh.... well, I was sleeping..." Because even staying up late to enjoy a brilliant display from the Leonid Meteor shower will not be a good enough excuse.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2

09/10/2023

Getting excited about another full stack launch attempt of SpaceX's Starship?

Here's a nice infographic showing and explaining what we can expect:

09/09/2023

There's a lot of talk today (see source examples in comments below) about the high cost of NASA's next generation of Moon Missions. As will come as no surprise to those of who know who we Dark Rangers are, and what we champion, our support for NASA's is unanimous and unwavering.

Since I, the head Dark Ranger, have a day-job (agency identity withheld for government ethics reasons) where I write grants for, help compete, award, and manage a few multi-million-$ federal government contracts myself, I will say that NASA needs to pivot away from "cost-plus" aka blank-check contracts the DOD "enjoys" like they have with Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman and put all those once great, but now struggling, space contractors under the same constraints of "firm-fixed price" contracts like NASA has with the phenomenally cost-effective SpaceX.

Doubtless some benefiting politicians, out of the other side of their election-fast-approaching, "fiscal-responsibility" mouths, are being lobbied to keep NASA's blank checks flowing (despite the rocket-bureaucrat's superior government ethics). Other than that, I can only assume NASA is truly doing the best they can. Space exploration, like everything transformational, IS expensive.

I can assure you, that at least in one way, NASA, saved a HUGE pile of money from an internship with now Dark Ranger, Liam Yanulis, who created most of animations for the Artemis I mission, for FREE!

You might have mistook his work for live video filmed from "chase spacecraft" (which don't yet exist, even for SpaceX) because NASA intern, Liam was (and still is) that good! If you don't remember those ubiquitous animations from the global media surrounding the Artemis I Mission last November, watch his animations again in this rock-video.

The rest of the story:

We, the Dark Ranger's head-hunted Liam from that NASA internship where he is now doing amazing work for us with astrophotography -- real images of amazing astronomical objects from light years away. Indeed, imagery that will be available in our future gift shop for years to come. Imagery we will have to explain, "Uh no... That's not an from James Webb Space Telescope, it was taken right here! We had this guy named Liam..."

And if NASA realizes who they are missing, and they manage to steal Liam back, we hope you, the American tax-payer, won't mind if he pulls down a modest $60K/yr to be one of NASA's paid virtual reality animators.

In the meantime we know we have Liam through October of 2023. So, if you need another reason (besides the Oct. 14 solar eclipse? Yes, we scheduled it for a Saturday to make it easy for you out-of-state stargazers) to stargaze with us this Fall, how about this one?

You could shake the hand of and maybe get autograph from (before or after his brilliant powerpoint show and telescope operation which you will also enjoy), the young man who took all of us Earthlings (who were paying attention then, or now) on a virtual ride to our Moon, with several orbits, and safely back to the Earth.

Perhaps not as prestigious of a celebrity moment as meeting NASA's other highly talented, and dedicated volunteer, Eddie Vedder?

Of course not! And yet... one thing could lead to another. Liam has also distinguished himself as being one of our go-to excavator heavy-equipment operators. 'Cuz you know 300-seat amphitheaters don't build themselves. And, invincible rockers and fellow NASA-ophiles like Eddie, might be an easy way to fill our future amphitheater up.. from time to time?

First thing's first.

Come meet Dark Ranger Liam Yanulis!

Check out Eddie Vedder's "Invincible" video collaboration with NASA for the Artemis I rollout. For more info on the Moon mission: https://www.nasa.gov/artemi...