Looking up at stars - and much more

What are your plans for 2042?

Hopefully you’ll still be upright and taking nourishment. Let me give you a goal for 2042: to watch the lunar occultation of Mars (or rewatch it if you caught it Monday night).

Mars still is spectacularly brilliant, as brilliant as it will be for another 26 months. When the Red Planet again falls into an orbit opposite the sun - called “opposition.” It is so bright that with simple telescopes or binoculars the views are literally otherworldly. You’ve still got a little time.

The full moon of January is usually called the Wolf Moon. On Monday, that Wolf Moon appeared to eat Mars as it passed in front of it. The astronomy circles made a big deal about that dining experience.

I found no comment on what to make of it when Mars re-appeared some hours later. If the Wolf Moon ate Mars, and the Mars passed through the Wolf, perhaps it wasn’t the “Red Planet” anymore.

I’m not much of an astronomer. In fact I’m not an astronomer at all. Instead of star gazing, I do star looking. I treasure the sight of stars whether from the ease of my driveway or in an inky pre-dawn duck blind.

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All those celestial bodies, for the course of human history, have appeared fixed and predictable in their movements. It’s no wonder their regular comings and goings marked time.

You can call a full moon anything you want. The Lakota called it the Whirling Wind Moon. The ancient pagans of northern Europe referred to it as the Moon after Yule. I like Wolf Moon. There’s something fitting to think of a frigid and still evening transporting the calls of our best friend’s ancestors.

Something stirs in those ancient parts of our bodies, too.

There have been about 64 Martian oppositions since the wails of resident wolves carried across the prairies. Professor Dinsmore figured the last native Iowa wolf was silenced in Butler county in the winter of 1885.

The apex canines never stood a chance. From 1840 to the early 1970s, wolves lived with a bounty on their lives in Iowa. They were varmints and they were doomed.

I was watching the nearning of Mars and the moon Monday night from the yard. Mars was to the left of the moon and their distance was closing. My camera took terrible pictures. So I decided to drive quick to a darker spot to the north in hopes of getting a clearer view and maybe a sharper image.

Now I was driving with anxiety, trying to look up and wish away the cloud bank that was approaching. I was muttering to myself. I could not help but think of Ray Liotta’s character in “GoodFellas.”

As I parked, the cloud bank moved in, obscuring the view; the wolf was just about to bite. There I was, parked on the side of the road in the dark, my tripod and camera obviated. But it was serene none-the-less. I wasn’t upset. I pursued the occultation for the pleasure of it and I was enjoying the experience.

With no shame, I let out a long howl. No howl returned. Will we wait another 64 Martian oppositions to hear an Iowa born wolf?

Wolves do move through Iowa. Four wolves have been killed in Missouri since 2001, the most recent in 2019. They came from the Minnesota-Wisconsin population, young wanderers of course. Perhaps they didn’t find anything to their liking in Iowa and so continued their southbound sojourn?

Iowa can be plenty wild even without wolves. I don’t see them fitting into the intensive level of agriculture and human settlement here. I don’t see elk fitting in either. But neither are going extinct. To the contrary, their numbers in the 48 states have never been higher in well over 100 years.

I do worry about our stars going extinct. That is, the ability to view the constellations from backyards or edge-of-town roads. Development and the proliferation of cheap LEDs are a two-pronged attack on the ancient heavenly sight. It doesn’t have to be this way but that’s true for a lot of things in our lives.

The monthly subscription for star looking is affordable, the return on investment is profound. Just remember to keep an ear cocked for a searching howl, too.

Looking up, looking ahead, and keeping my pencil sharp.

John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D. teaches at Linn-Mar High School. He sits on the Marion Tree Board, and is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America