Dark skies, dangling questions greet hundreds at 30th annual Nebraska Star Party
MERRITT RESERVOIR – Last September, the International Dark-Sky Association confirmed what veterans of the Nebraska Star Party have known for 30 years: On a clear night, the Sandhills boast some of the darkest skies on Earth.
Thanks to a joint effort between two Nebraska state agencies, the 729-acre Merritt Reservoir State Recreation Area – spilling like a broken vessel across the heart of Cherry County – is now the first certified International Dark Sky Park in the state.
“The Milky Way is so bright here it casts shadows on the ground!” said Brenda Culbertson, a solar system ambassador with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at last month’s 30th annual Nebraska Star Party. Her husband Mike, a farmer and mechanical engineer, tinkered with his telescope beside her. “Here the stars are in your face, not up in the sky. It feels like you’re on a different planet.”
The IDA called Merritt’s certification “a major first step in conserving Nebraska’s nightscape” and “an opportunity to highlight it as an astrotourism destination.” And judging by this year’s Nebraska Star Party turnout – the third highest on record, with 382 registered stargazers – the results may already be speaking for themselves.
Despite thunderstorms, soaring temperatures and haze from Canadian wildfires, vehicles from Nebraska to New York and Michigan to Massachusetts skirted the park’s weather-cracked roads all week, waiting for that one clear night beneath the stars.
“This is amazing!” said Dave Knisely, Nebraska Star Party board member and field school coordinator. “I’m looking at a galaxy – a huge galaxy – from one end to the other, right now, with just the naked eye.”
Beneath the excitement of ring nebulas and globular clusters, however, whispers circulated throughout the event that mere bureaucracy prevented Merritt Reservoir and the surrounding wildlife management area, both managed by the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission, from achieving the highest classification: not that of a “Dark Sky Park,” but a full-fledged “Dark Sky Sanctuary.”
Though reluctant to comment on what she called “local politics,” former IDA director of conservation Ashley Wilson agreed.
“From my point of view, IDA would have easily accepted that site as a sanctuary,” she said. “But it appeared that the people in charge of the wildlife management area were just done. They just wanted to observe from the outside, and not really be part of the application process.”
Had the 8,900-acre wildlife management area chosen to participate, the larger Merritt area would have joined fewer than 20 other certified dark-sky sanctuaries in the world.
