\u201cThis is the first stargazing event we\u2019ve had in Harlem,\u201d said Savona Bailey-McClain<\/a>, executive director of West Harlem Art Fund, who hosted it with the AAA. She hoped the moon and the stars would bring people outside and make<\/a> outdoor activities in public spaces more welcoming \u2014 especially to people of color. \u201cThe goal is to connect people to nature,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unpredictable weather had forced them to reschedule three times since last December. \u201cWe had the coldest winter in 20 years, it was snowing and also too cold,\u201d said Kat Troche, AAA president, adjusting her own skyward lens. \u201cSo low temperatures are bad for the telescopes?\u201d one curious attendant asked. \u201cNo, bad for me, I\u2019d be freezing,\u201d Troche replied, laughing.\u00a0<\/p>\n AAA hosts around 100 free viewing sessions a year in 17 locations across the city. On the same night Harlem hosted its first public stargazing meetup, another group was also admiring the stars from Inwood Hill Park at the northern tip of Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Close one eye and squint! A family joined Harlem\u2019s first stargazing event in Morningside Park, Upper Manhattan. [Credit: Nhung Nguyen]<\/p>\n \u201cI saw Jupiter \u2014 it has stripes!\u201d a kid jumped up and down, yelling. As the sky deepened into darkness, the stars started making a brighter appearance, drawing in steady lines around the telescopes.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t really stargazed as much, because I spend my entire life living in cities,\u201d said Jake Ha, an undergraduate from New York University, who came for a creative assignment for his History of the Universe class. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing. I\u2019m surprised that you can see this many stars from New York,\u201d added Luana Rodriguez, Ha\u2019s classmate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Elizabeth Parker, who lives nearby, learned about the event by Googling fun things to do in the neighborhood on the weekend. \u201cI\u2019m pushing myself to be out, with people,\u201d she said, \u201cnot let the cold stop me, and not let my situation affect me. You know?\u201d Parker has been trying to look for a job, but it\u2019s not been easy in this economy. \u201cTonight, I just wanted to see the stars,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Others, waiting for their turns at the telescope, pointed at the twinkling dots piercing the light haze. \u201cCareful, don\u2019t mistake them with the plane,\u201d one told another, laughing.<\/p>\n Nearby, high school student and amateur astronomer Remy Schanzer adjusted his new mini-observatory with quiet pride. \u201cOh, I just started five months ago,\u201d he chatted with other attendees, \u201cManhattan is the worst place in the world to get into it, because of all the pollution. But I still enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n New York City is debating<\/a> The Dark Skies Protection Act, a bill aimed to combat the city\u2019s vexing light pollution by limiting artificial lighting between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. The massive white glowing haze blazing from skyscrapers, high-intensity LED billboards and street lights not only dims the Milky Way, but also disrupts human sleep and bird migrations, all while driving up electricity costs and the city\u2019s carbon footprint. However, opponents are concerned a dimmer New York would render neighborhoods unsafe.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the parks department can just shield these two bright lights there so they angle down, that\u2019d be great,\u201d Kat Troche pointed at two LED lights from a public bathroom a few steps away from her telescope\u2019s tripod. She had been threading blue light-filtering lenses onto the bottom of the optical tube, attempting to show everyone a four-star cluster emerging out of the nebula. \u201cThey can leave the bathroom light open. The warm light doesn\u2019t really bother us, it\u2019s just the LEDs.\u201d<\/p>\n Astronomers elsewhere have had more luck in advocating for dark skies. Tucson, a major city in Arizona, has positioned itself as a world capital of astronomy<\/a> by adopting<\/a> low-blue lights that are shielded and directed downward. Other states have also enacted measures<\/a> to curb light pollution, including requiring cutoff luminaires above certain brightness levels and prioritizing alternatives, such as lower speed limits and reflective markers instead of adding more roadway lighting.<\/p>\n At last, the four stars emerged on the other end of Troche\u2019s tube, like bright specks of dust on a deep blue background. \u201cEventually, they\u2019ll go their separate ways,\u201d she told a first-time stargazer who squinted to catch a glimpse. \u201cOur own Sun was formed out of a stellar nursery like that,\u201d Troche said.<\/p>\n Without the telescopes, the group could only make experienced guesses as to the rest of the night sky. \u201cYou have the Orion constellation here.\u2029Aldebaran and Taurus may be there,\u201d they gestured. The Bull and the Pleiades are kind of hard to see, Troche said, but the Pleiades must be around somewhere above the tree line.<\/p>\n Before it was obscured by artificial light, the Milky Way above them for centuries was considered the path to heaven by Lenape people \u2014 the Indigenous people of the Mid-Atlantic coast. In some accounts<\/a>, Opit\u00ebmak\u00e0n, or \u201cthe White Road\u201d is where the souls of good people travel along it to the beautiful Land to live with the Great Creator, Kishelemukong, with the stars the footprints of the spirit.<\/p>\n For anyone who is still eager to look up, whether for leisure or science, Troche said more stargazing opportunities are coming up in different neighborhoods across New York City. \u201cWe are volunteer-based; and one member is moving to this area,\u201d Troche added. \u201cOnce he gets settled and wants to come out, you\u2019ll get more events in Harlem by August, September.\u201d If you\u2019re interested, keep an eye on AAA\u2019s observing calendar<\/a>, and make sure your notifications are up to date, since events sometimes are cancelled if the clouds and the changing temperatures do not allow it.<\/p>\n \u201cI might be joining them again next time,\u201d Parker, the local resident, said as the tour of the stars was winding down. \u201cThis is just the perfect end of my night: had dinner, went outside, in good company, and looked at the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On one of the coldest nights in March, dozens of people gathered in the middle of the baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-184095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/unnamed-1-scaled.jpg\")
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