Western Slope Skies - A Powerful New Space Telescope
Suppose you were an astronomer and someone offered you, at no cost, two giant mirrors for telescopes in space, each valued at more than 250...
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Western Slope Skies
A bi-weekly short feature on astronomy, produced by members of the Black Canyon Astronomical Society.
Episodes
20 of 30 episodesWestern Slope Skies - The Lost Art of Looking Up
Colorado is home to several International DarkSky Places, including Paonia right here in the KVNF’s listening area. Naturita, Nucla, and Nor...
Western Slope Skies - Primetime Lunar Eclipse - August 27
On August 27 the Sun sets late, around 7:46 PM MDT, which allows enough time to get home from work or school, eat dinner, and get ready for...
Western Slope Skies - Supernovae
In 2024, the popular Korean girl group aespa came out with a song called “Supernova,” a creative song that blends astronomy and art, represe...
Western Slope Skies - Circadian Rhythm Part 5: Living Systems
Here's where evolutionary biology meets modern medicine. Our ancestors lived with natural light-dark cycles for millions of years. Industria...
Western Slope Skies: Circadian Rhythm Part 4: Treatments
Remember nights when you tossed and turned, desperately trying to get some sleep? I think we can all relate. Circadian rhythm disorders, kno...
Western Slope Skies - Circadian Rhythm Part 3: Pathophysiology
What happens when a light switch disrupts billions of years of evolution?
Western Slope Skies: Circadian Rhythm Part 2: Anatomy and Physiology
Circadian rhythm—our endogenous biological clock—has synchronized life with Earth’s rotation for billions of years, from bacteria to humans....
Western Slope Skies - Circadian Rhythm Part 1: Evolution
In 2025, Jamie Perce with the Western Slope Dark Sky Coalition presented an excellent series on circadian rhythm. The importance of this top...
Western Slope Skies - Shedding light on special relativity: Why photons don’t get old
If you have attended a night sky outreach event, conducted, for example, by the Black Canyon Astronomical Society or the Western Colorado As...
Western Slope Skies - Listening to Astronomy
In astronomy, we rely heavily on visual information. Images from telescopes, graphs of light curves, plotted orbits, spectra and diagrams. M...
Western Slope Skies - Neutron Stars
We all know how weird black holes are, but did you know there is another type of star that is just as strange? Welcome to the universe of ne...
Western Slope Skies - Exploring The Moon
When we gaze at the Moon in the future, we’ll contemplate that we humans have extended our reach to Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor. Perh...
Western Slope Skies - Total Lunar Eclipse - March 3
Let’s hope for clear skies on the morning of March 3, when the Western Slope will be treated to a total lunar eclipse. During the early hour...
Western Slope Skies - Spectral Harbingers: Nacreous and Noctilucent Clouds
Who doesn’t like a pretty cloud in the sky? As familiar as the Sun and the Moon, clouds assume a wide array of shapes and sizes—from ominous...
Western Slope Skies - Osiris Rex and Apophis
How did life originate? Did it form on Earth or elsewhere in the solar system and was it seeded on Earth by impact of an asteroid? Will life...
Western Slope Skies - Polaris Through the Ages
On a clear night if you look in the sky towards true north, you’ll notice a star that seems to never change direction. If you’re able to fin...
Western Slope Skies - Light Pollution and Urban Ecosystem Timing – Who woulda thought?
An article in the international journal Nature Cities by Lvlv Wang and co-authors document the effect of light pollution on the growing seas...
Western Slope Skies - Rolling Under the Rockies: Dung Beetles in the Dark
The unappreciated dung, or scarab beetle, an insect that evolved about 130 million years ago, must accomplish its nocturnal task under incre...
Western Slope Skies - The Cosmic Connection: Awe and Mental Wellness
Awe, as researchers Maria Monroy and Dacher Keltner explain, is a transformative emotion. It soothes your nervous system, quiets self-doubt,...