We don't control weather... just expertly predict it
Is the Sky Going to be Cloudy on the Night of Our Telescope Tour?
If you are asking more then 3 nights in advance of your booking, NOBODY, including us, knows with enough confidence upon which important decisions should be made. Unlike some, we are loathe to provide uncertain information.
However, once we are certain, usually not until 6:00-7:00pm on the night of your tour, we will send you a Weather Update / Go or No-go Determination text and email message. NOTE: If you have not already booked a telescope tour you will not get his update. How could you?
If 2-3 hours notice is not satisfying enough for your needs, you can, on your own, review the same weather prediction tools we rely on below.
However, once we are certain, usually not until 6:00-7:00pm on the night of your tour, we will send you a Weather Update / Go or No-go Determination text and email message. NOTE: If you have not already booked a telescope tour you will not get his update. How could you?
If 2-3 hours notice is not satisfying enough for your needs, you can, on your own, review the same weather prediction tools we rely on below.
This 72-hr weather forecast is made for astronomers by the astronomer Attilla Danko. We rely on it because it's an quick weather chart to read and it is seldom wrong. If you're not sure how to read this, click on the chart for detailed instructions. But basically, for the non-astronomer, the red lines mark midnight, and the more darker blue squares you see... the more you will see (astronomically speaking)!
Looking for a superior weather tool? Try Windy! Even the free "widget" version above is useful. The premium subscription version we buy www.windy.com (DarkRanger) , with hourly forecasts; their meteogram showing cloud heights & thickness; and the high resolution satellite and radar loops, makes all the other weather apps look amateurish.
Frugal weather enthusiasts, who can also find our observatory on a map without labels, can review this multi-spectrum satellite loop from GOES-16 as managed by the College of DuPage.
Dark Ranger Telescope Tours reserves the right to make the final decisions regarding weather cancellations and weather related refunds. These determinations will be based on these 3 weather prediction systems above and our decades of experience operating a weather dependent business on the Colorado Plateau. Frame your counter-arguments within those parameters and we will entertain them.
Cloudy Sky Cancellation Policy
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The Weather is Different Here...
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If during the 2 to 3-hr course of a Telescope Tour, we fail to show you at least 1 example from 4 of 5 classes of astronomical objects (solar system object, double-star star cluster, galaxy, and nebulae), we offer 75% REFUNDS.
When we are sure it will be too stormy to use the telescopes (e.g. too dangerous to telescopes and/or humans to even try), we will send a text and email alert about how and why we must do a Hard Cancellation (85% Refund). Otherwise, when it is too close to call, you are still obligated to attend so as to earn your refund. We'll still offer the live multimedia show while we wait for the sky to clear. So at worst, you'll get a fun show with a 75% refund. At best the sky will clear, and there will be much rejoicing. If you leave early or do not show-up at all, you are voiding your right to a refund regardless of whether our weather prediction was right or wrong. However, if you make an Backup Night Booking and we still fail, after 2 nights (or more) of trying, you will get 100% refund of your primary night's tour tickets. Finally, we reserve the right to do a weather delay up to 1 hour past the scheduled start time, if our weather expertise and experience suggests we can avoid bad weather by doing so. Of course you don't have to stay an extra hour later, but many of you will because we are that fun. |
Folks like to brag about their rapidly changing weather. In reality few places rival the clearing speed of the Colorado Plateau. The time-lapse above goes from 100% overcast, with lightning, to 100% clear in 90 minutes!
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The bottom line is: Trust us! Since we run a weather dependent business, we have to be both VERY good at predicting our local weather, and generous when we're wrong. If we weren't, we would have already gone out of business, long ago. :-)
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Beat the Odds of Cloudy Weather By Booking A Backup Night
Well, my phone says...
Please don't call us to offer help in predicting OUR weather. Realize that just because you have an app on your phone does NOT give you an honorary degree in that subject. This is doubly true for weather. On the Colorado Plateau, weather is very localized and very temporal. What you see happening at point A at time X, is NOT what will be happening at Point B during time Z. This is why we'd also entirely ignore whatever guesses celebrity meteorologists like Al Roker, or Jim Cantore might try to supplant our experience with, if for some weird reason they were to call.
Maybe your phone app and your hours of experience with weather patterns on the Colorado Plateau might be sufficient for planning your daytime activities and whether you chose to dine inside or outside. But none of that will hold any sway in determining when the Dark Rangers do or do not set up their telescopes.
Maybe your phone app and your hours of experience with weather patterns on the Colorado Plateau might be sufficient for planning your daytime activities and whether you chose to dine inside or outside. But none of that will hold any sway in determining when the Dark Rangers do or do not set up their telescopes.
But, I'm on vacation! And I'm just trying to plan my day!
If you are on vacation, why don't you let us, the local experts, worry about the weather? Realize that from us, no news, is good news. If you don't hear from us, it means we have either all been destroyed by an asteroid impact (that we ironically didn't see coming), or we are NOT AT ALL worried about whatever might be worrying you.
If you need extra assurances book a Backup night. Truly excellent planners always have a backup plan. Have you ALSO booked a backup night?
As for planning your day, since stargazing is best done at night, how will night time weather affect your daytime activity choices?
But if you are open to our advice about planing your daytime activities, we suggest you plan a nap before stargazing with us. Vision is a vulnerable system. You don't see as well when you are: tired, unhappy, intoxicated, or experiencing physical or emotional stress. A nap will help with most of those conditions.
If that's still not good enough, and you feel you must contact us anyway, just know that it is less annoying for us if you text or email us about your pre-show weather concerns. It will only take a moment away from our near constant monitoring of the weather to reply with the exact same URL [link] you should be reading now. :-)
If you need extra assurances book a Backup night. Truly excellent planners always have a backup plan. Have you ALSO booked a backup night?
As for planning your day, since stargazing is best done at night, how will night time weather affect your daytime activity choices?
But if you are open to our advice about planing your daytime activities, we suggest you plan a nap before stargazing with us. Vision is a vulnerable system. You don't see as well when you are: tired, unhappy, intoxicated, or experiencing physical or emotional stress. A nap will help with most of those conditions.
If that's still not good enough, and you feel you must contact us anyway, just know that it is less annoying for us if you text or email us about your pre-show weather concerns. It will only take a moment away from our near constant monitoring of the weather to reply with the exact same URL [link] you should be reading now. :-)
Yeah, But We Are Staying in the Zion area!
If you've inconveniently booked your overnight stay in the Zion area, or even farther away, you must have prioritized something else above stargazing with us. No need to justify that choice. You won't be able to convince us anyway. We live here. So we know something about what staying in the Zion area does or doesn't offer. Instead, let's just try to make the most of it.
Our 6:00-7:00pm text and email weather update will still give you enough notice to make the 2-hr commute from Zion. So, while waiting for our weather update, why not have a nap? If we have to Hard Cancel you'll be well-rested for the non-existent nightlife in Zion.
Why else do we famously advise, "Stay up all night with the Dark Rangers, see the sunrise from Bryce Point, hike your legs off on the trails of Bryce Canyon, you can always sleep when you get to Zion."
If however, you are already in the Bryce Canyon area for the day, and we have to do a Hard Cancel, you'll be able to start the long drive back to Zion early, being refreshed from your nap. If we decide to go for it, and the clouds clear as they often do, you can stargaze with us until midnight, and you'll still be better prepared for the long drive back to Zion, thanks to your well-planned nap.
Our 6:00-7:00pm text and email weather update will still give you enough notice to make the 2-hr commute from Zion. So, while waiting for our weather update, why not have a nap? If we have to Hard Cancel you'll be well-rested for the non-existent nightlife in Zion.
Why else do we famously advise, "Stay up all night with the Dark Rangers, see the sunrise from Bryce Point, hike your legs off on the trails of Bryce Canyon, you can always sleep when you get to Zion."
If however, you are already in the Bryce Canyon area for the day, and we have to do a Hard Cancel, you'll be able to start the long drive back to Zion early, being refreshed from your nap. If we decide to go for it, and the clouds clear as they often do, you can stargaze with us until midnight, and you'll still be better prepared for the long drive back to Zion, thanks to your well-planned nap.
We got to see a variety of things through the telescopes, but it was still mostly cloudy. Clouds aren't what I paid for. Why can't I get a refund?
Just as you didn't pay for clouds, you also didn't pay for clear sky.
When you book with us, what you pay for is what costs our business money: providing literal hands-on access to many, well-maintained, $10,000 - $25,000 research grade telescopes. Your booking also pays the wages required to attract and retain the industry-leading, entertaining talent and educational skills of professional astronomers and astronomy students. Did you know that only 160 Astronomy PhDs (a 10-year pursuit) are offered from 60 Universities in USA each year? By comparison 700 MDs (11-year pursuit) are awarded annually from 192 American Universities. For better or worse, real astronomers are not nearly as expensive as doctors (or even the lessor educated engineers, lawyers, financiers, etc.), but we are more rare.
What do you think you'd see on a perfectly clear night sky without our BIG professional telescopes?
Even if we still provided the telescopes, who do you know with enough talent to run them as efficiently as we do (i.e., finding and explaining 20-30 deep space objects in 2 hours or less)? Or at all? That's what you are paying for.
Looking up at the sky is free -- apparently even in Russia and North Korea. Since we don't charge for parking, you could "crash" our facility and stargaze in our parking lot. You might even getaway with it since most nights we are too busy striving to show our paying customers a stellar time too notice. Unless you were being disruptive, we'd just label you as cheapskates enjoying naked-eye views of the Milky Way from our intentionally unlighted parking lot, rather than report you as trespassers.
Since natural darkness and light pollution both transcend property lines, when you spend money at Dark Ranger Telescopes Tours (DRTT) you are also financing our night sky advocacy that causes most Southern Utah, residents, business owners, and even politicians to think twice before they add more artificial light to the larger tourism economy. Thanks to us (and other like-minded residents) we are helping them realize that if they manage their darkness as poorly as your community does back home, you would NOT be seeking us out for stargazing. Some of you might skip Bryce Canyon altogether, spending your money in other dark-sky places where there are also cool rocks.
Think about it even harder!
If you agree that nobody can control the weather, why would you expect that bad weather should be a one-sided burden? Insurance companies don't see it that way. They could only stay in business if their policy holders ended up paying a much greater combined amount in premiums than they payout in claims.
Finally, while humanity might never be able to control the weather, we'd have less problematic weather if we united to better mitigate the climate crisis. To that end, DRTT is doing more than most. Our company vehicles are EVs, and we are replacing our diesel-powered heavy equipment with battery electric versions, as they become available. Our 3 observatories are entirely solar powered (though if a series of cloudy days depletes our battery banks we will run a gasoline powered generator for 30-60 minutes to boil enough hot water for our guests to enjoy our free hot drinks). All of our employee housing is also solar powered! Though during freezing temperatures, we "cheat" by doing additional heating with firewood or propane.
In summary, thank you for supporting our hard-working business with your hard-earned money. We couldn't do any of these without your patronage. So please realize that for that same reason, if we give back full-refunds (instead of 75-85% back in your pocket) on those rare nights when weather bests or telescopes and our talent, we would not exist for you to enjoy our services. Worse yet, central Southern Utah would soon become just as light polluted as any other rural area.
When you book with us, what you pay for is what costs our business money: providing literal hands-on access to many, well-maintained, $10,000 - $25,000 research grade telescopes. Your booking also pays the wages required to attract and retain the industry-leading, entertaining talent and educational skills of professional astronomers and astronomy students. Did you know that only 160 Astronomy PhDs (a 10-year pursuit) are offered from 60 Universities in USA each year? By comparison 700 MDs (11-year pursuit) are awarded annually from 192 American Universities. For better or worse, real astronomers are not nearly as expensive as doctors (or even the lessor educated engineers, lawyers, financiers, etc.), but we are more rare.
What do you think you'd see on a perfectly clear night sky without our BIG professional telescopes?
Even if we still provided the telescopes, who do you know with enough talent to run them as efficiently as we do (i.e., finding and explaining 20-30 deep space objects in 2 hours or less)? Or at all? That's what you are paying for.
Looking up at the sky is free -- apparently even in Russia and North Korea. Since we don't charge for parking, you could "crash" our facility and stargaze in our parking lot. You might even getaway with it since most nights we are too busy striving to show our paying customers a stellar time too notice. Unless you were being disruptive, we'd just label you as cheapskates enjoying naked-eye views of the Milky Way from our intentionally unlighted parking lot, rather than report you as trespassers.
Since natural darkness and light pollution both transcend property lines, when you spend money at Dark Ranger Telescopes Tours (DRTT) you are also financing our night sky advocacy that causes most Southern Utah, residents, business owners, and even politicians to think twice before they add more artificial light to the larger tourism economy. Thanks to us (and other like-minded residents) we are helping them realize that if they manage their darkness as poorly as your community does back home, you would NOT be seeking us out for stargazing. Some of you might skip Bryce Canyon altogether, spending your money in other dark-sky places where there are also cool rocks.
Think about it even harder!
If you agree that nobody can control the weather, why would you expect that bad weather should be a one-sided burden? Insurance companies don't see it that way. They could only stay in business if their policy holders ended up paying a much greater combined amount in premiums than they payout in claims.
Finally, while humanity might never be able to control the weather, we'd have less problematic weather if we united to better mitigate the climate crisis. To that end, DRTT is doing more than most. Our company vehicles are EVs, and we are replacing our diesel-powered heavy equipment with battery electric versions, as they become available. Our 3 observatories are entirely solar powered (though if a series of cloudy days depletes our battery banks we will run a gasoline powered generator for 30-60 minutes to boil enough hot water for our guests to enjoy our free hot drinks). All of our employee housing is also solar powered! Though during freezing temperatures, we "cheat" by doing additional heating with firewood or propane.
In summary, thank you for supporting our hard-working business with your hard-earned money. We couldn't do any of these without your patronage. So please realize that for that same reason, if we give back full-refunds (instead of 75-85% back in your pocket) on those rare nights when weather bests or telescopes and our talent, we would not exist for you to enjoy our services. Worse yet, central Southern Utah would soon become just as light polluted as any other rural area.
