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Grand Canyon Conservancy
Canyon Conversations

Canyon Conversations: Preserving Natural Darkness

Join Rader Lane, Park Ranger & Dark Skies Program Manager at Grand Canyon National Park and Stephen Hummel, Dark Skies Coordinator at McDonald Observatory for a conversation about preserving Dark Skies. 

  • March 25, 2026
  • 5:00PM–6:00PM MST
  • Zoom Webinar
  • Register
Grand Canyon sits below pristine dark skies

Grand Canyon National Park enjoys some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States. However, light pollution is increasing at a rapid pace around the world, threatening even rural locations far from the lights of urban centers. Thanks to Astronomer in Residence, Stephen Hummel, the park collected extensive data on the quality of our night skies in 2025, measuring natural darkness at key locations in the park where data was collected in 2015. The findings are crucial to understanding how light pollution has changed in and around Grand Canyon over the last decade and will inform future work with nearby cities and gateway communities.

Rader will share the latest work being done to protect Grand Canyon’s night sky from artificial light pollution, including retrofitting light fixtures throughout the park, and hosting educational and outreach programs to connect visitors to Grand Canyon’s night skies. Stephen will provide an overview of the dark sky research he completed for the park while in residence and how you can make your home dark sky friendly, followed by a short discussion and Q&A with the audience.

This one-hour event is presented by Grand Canyon Conservancy with facilitation by Mindy Riesenberg, Chief Communications Officer.

Grand Canyon National Park Ranger, Rader Lane, giving a summary of the park's Dark Sky program. NPS/Bryan Maul (He is wearing a NPS uniform and is standing in between two flags, with a canyon landscape in the background.)

Rader Lane

Park Ranger, Dark Skies Program Manager, Grand Canyon National Park

Rader Lane has been an interpretive park ranger at Grand Canyon National Park since 2010. His main duties involve connecting visitors emotionally and intellectually to the night skies through formal talks, digital media, and outreach. He coordinates the park’s Dark Skies Program, which includes the largest night sky festival in the National Park Service—the Grand Canyon Star Party—and the Astronomer in Residence Program. He works with a team in the park to measure the quality of the dark skies, retrofit park lighting, and maintain the park’s International Dark-Sky Park status. His coordination of the Dark Skies Program helped earn Grand Canyon National Park the International Dark-Sky Place of the Year Award in 2019 from the International Dark-Sky Association. 

Stephen hummel headshot

Stephen Hummel

Astronomer in Residence, 2025

Stephen is the Dark Skies Initiative Coordinator for McDonald Observatory, part of the University of Texas at Austin. During his time in residence, Stephen offered public programs, “Astronomy without a Telescope;” “Preserving Dark Skies;” and “Sprites, Elves, Ghosts, and More: The weird world of upper atmospheric lightning.”

Topics:
Grand Canyon Conservancy, Canyon Conversations, Virtual