Did you see the gorgeous moonset Friday night (February 27)? A slender crescent Moon — “horns” pointing upward — set along with Venus close by. Earthshine illuminated the body of the Moon above the horns. Someone once told me this is called “the new Moon in the cradle of the old.”
If you looked at Venus with a small telescope or binoculars, you would have noticed that the planet was, like the Moon, a delicate crescent. In the east, Saturn rose after dark, and Comet Lulin was still visible in Leo the Lion.
This weekend I saw these astronomical beauties from the north country of Wisconsin. I was up near Crivetz, which is north of Green Bay a few hours’ drive from my home in Milwaukee. My friend David Niec, a Milwaukee-based artist, was up at his family’s cottage on Lake Pickerel to paint.
Dave has an interesting specialty. He paints outdoors in the dark — by moonlight and by starlight. His only source of artificial illumination is a small wind-up flashlight that he cranks up when he needs to aim his brush at a certain color on his painting palette.
Oh, did I mention he paints outdoors at night in the depths of the North Country winter?
Friday night, the mercury was just sinking below zero when we set out to catch the moonset. I was fairly warm through the moonset. Dave daubed rich blues and blacks to create the background of the sky and the tree line in the west. He then dipped into lighter colors to paint the Moon and Venus.
He works quickly, racing to beat the Moon to the trees. The paintings are quick sketches or studies — works in progress that he finishes throughout the year, after the snow, freezing temperatures, and spooky stillness of the North Country transitions to crickets, the whine of outboard motor and leafy tree lines.
Dave isn’t interested so much in warmth and leafy tree lines. He paints the shadows of moonlight that play through the trees and over the snow. He paints the glow of the northern lights and the impossibly dense starry sky. His work beautifully captures the almost eerie stillness of the north woods in winter, broken only by the distant buzz of snowmobiles and the yelps of coyotes.
After moonset, we headed inside to warm up a bit and eat dinner. Soon it was time to head back out to paint the stars. I humped my Celestron NexStar — an autoguided 4-inch Cassegrain telescope — out through the snow, knee-deep in some spots, and set it up on a stout aluminum tripod on the frozen lake. My gloves were inadequate, so by the time I got the tripod leveled, numbness had already started to set in.
Going through the procedure to track the sky using the telescope’s computer seemed hopeless — too much button pushing with numb fingers, and the liquid crystal display on the autoguide control was already unreadable due to the cold. At minimum, you need to get a fix on two different guide stars for the telescope to track accurately.
Numb but undeterred for the moment, I observed the Orion Nebula (M42), struggling to keep it centered in the eyepiece using the telescope hand controller. I’d seen this nebula before as a fuzzy patch through binoculars, but never at higher magnification in a good telescope.
I saw the little trapezoid of bright young stars at the nebula’s heart — the Trapezium — for the first time. I felt a little rush of boyish excitement. “Wow,” I said, lacking the exact adjective to describe the sight in my eyepiece.
But each touch on the plastic buttons to aim the scope chilled my fingertips more, even through gloves.
Meanwhile, Dave flitted between gazing into the sky with binoculars and daubing stars onto the rigid masonite board perched on his easel.
Dave is used to the cold and sometimes stays out for half the night. His torn, paint-smeared woolen clothing and thick insulated boots say “hobo,” but Dave is the most determined and hard-working artist I have ever met. He has sacrificed a lot of comfort and security in his daytime life for the privilege of being able to paint the night sky.
Finally defeated by the plunging mercury, I cut and ran after midnight. Back at the cottage, my fingertips ached as they thawed.
The next night, it was warmer: 14° Fahrenheit. Toting the Celestron again, I followed Dave deep into the woods to paint the moonset through the silhouettes of hemlock and pine trees. Then he led me about a quarter mile up a snow-covered streambed to a spot where the Moon was still perched above a spiky tree line.
He picked this spot because it allowed a perspective on the Moon looking down the frozen stream. I recognized the view from paintings of his I’ve seen in art galleries and strewn throughout his house and studio in various stages of completion.
With the warmer temperature, still air, and warmer gloves, I was able to set the autoguide and get a long, good look at the Orion Nebula and the slender crescent Venus — also a first-time sight for this novice observer. I observed Saturn, too, and the fuzzy face of Comet Lulin.
For about an hour, it was pure stargazing magic and worth every second of the stumbling, snowy hike. Despite the ever-present light pollution — even up in the North Country of Wisconsin — the night sky stretched darker and wider than I’d seen it in years.
I got back to the cottage at 11 p.m., my shoulder throbbing from carrying the weight of the telescope and tripod through knee-deep snow. I started to nod off within an hour, but Dave was suiting up to go out and paint stars again. After 15 years of this routine, it’s just another cold starry night for him and an endless series of deep-blue canvasses waiting for the Moon and stars.
All images courtesy of Dave Niec.