In July 2015, the world marveled as NASA’s New Horizons probe revealed the wonders of Pluto and its moons for the first time. Now, New Horizons returns for an encore: a New Year’s Day flyby of a distant world known as 2014 MU69, nicknamed “Ultima Thule.”

Over my ranger career, I’ve been posted at some of the most spectacular locations on the planet. Grand Teton, Zion, Everglades, Wind Cave, and the Black Canyon, conjure up images of grand landscapes, wildlife, and history. At each park, I’ve talked to visitors from Topeka, to Tacoma, to Tampa. As you might expect, they come with questions - "How deep is the canyon?" "What animals might I see?" and, of course, the ever urgent "WHERE IS THE RESTROOM?!"

Looking toward the eastern horizon on a cool, mid-November evening the Autumn constellations are on prominent display while those of Winter are just starting to rise, and the constellations of Summer are setting in the west. Almost due east is the bright star Capella, in the constellation Auriga. Between Auriga and the constellation Andromeda lies the constellation Perseus, known for the famous double cluster and Algol, the Demon star.

In early August 1596, astronomer David Fabricius observed a star in constellation Cetus, the sea monster, carefully noting the star’s position and brightness. Eighteen days later he noticed that the star had more than doubled in brightness.

There are 88 defined constellations. More than half of these are animals. While some animal constellations are visible year round in western Colorado, during October evenings, many are along a path from north to south, known as the meridian. Get out your star chart and let’s go to the Meridian Zoo!

All over the world, people are losing night. In fact, 80% of the global population cannot see the Milky Way from where they live. How can this be?

By the end of our lives, most of us will have witnessed nearly 1,000 full moons. So perhaps the appearance of yet another one this week will not strike us as anything special.

Early autumn is Milky Way season. You may have seen its graceful arch creeping higher above the horizon over the past few months. Now, in early September, our galaxy stretches from north to south, nearly overhead, at about 10 pm.

This summer Mars has been closer to Earth than at any time since 2003, which has made it prime time for viewing the Red Planet. But if you have viewed Mars through a telescope recently, you may have been disappointed to find that details on the planet were blurry.

Remember the Great American Eclipse of 2017 ? Now that all the hype, the traffic jams, and the threat of zombie apocalypse have come and gone, we are left with… "So how was it?"