Bluff to celebrate Dark Sky Festival this weekend

by David Boyle
News Director
The town of Bluff is celebrating the beauty of the night sky with a festival filled with events, telescopes and presentations.
The town is celebrating its Dark Sky Community designation with a Dark Sky Festival this Friday and Saturday November 14 and 15.
The designation of a Dark Sky Community was given by the DarkSky International Organization in June of 2025.
Bluff is the first and only community to receive the DarkSky designation in San Juan County, and the sixth in Utah. Bluff is positioned as a hub for night sky viewers with four nearby International Dark Sky Parks: Natural Bridges National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, Goosenecks State Park, and Canyonlands National Park (Needles District).
The designation comes from DarkSky International a global non-profit working to reduce light pollution through outreach, education, and lighting policy.
The designation reflects years of community effort to preserve the natural night sky in Bluff.
Bears Ears Partnership Education Director and Bluff resident Sarah Burak was a key leader of the effort to receive the dark sky designation. Burak explained in an interview with 92.7 FM that the community took steps to limit its sky glow.
“To limit the light going into the air the town of Bluff actually wrote and enacted ordinances to monitor exterior lighting.”
Among those principles included fully shielded light to make sure light points to the ground rather than go into the sky.
The designation represents over a half-decade of work with the town of Bluff passing its first ordinance related to Dark Skies in 2019 and a revision in 2022.
“It’s been a process. Throughout that there’s been public hearings and educational sessions where we’ve talked to residents and business owners about what we’re looking to do and what that would mean for them.”
New buildings in Bluff are being built in compliance with the ordinance.
“We have several years to get the rest of town into compliance. We have some residents who have already done that. We have a lot of businesses who have already done that.”
Burak clarified its also about having smart lighting not a complete ban on lighting.
“We want to make sure that we have fully shielded lights. We want to make sure we’re using light only when and where we need it. We don’t always have to light things up. So, you can have motion sensors that turn on and off. You can have lights on timers. Those things that reduce our light overall.”
The ordinance was a key component of becoming a dark sky community as it looks to maintain the towns darkness by preventing new construction from brightening the sky in the future.
“After that we went through a pretty lengthy application process where we applied to DarkSky International to be a Dark Sky Community. On top of having our ordinances, we also have to provide educational programming twice a year and continue to do seasonal monitoring of our sky glow. So we go out and take measurements once a quarter to make sure that we’re kind of maintaining those light levels.”
The designation not only reflects the communities appreciation for the dark night sky but willingness to maintain it. 
“It’s about trying to maintain and preserve our natural darkness. So, I think it shows that our community is very excited about it and we’re hoping that that’s also going to draw other people to our community to experience the beauty of our night skies.”
The two-day festival is themed “discover the sky we share” with a promise for a “stellar lineup” of events.
The event starts Friday evening at the Bluff Community Center with a welcome before hearing from guest speakers including Kevin Schindler from the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff to discuss use of astronomy in everyday life, afterwards Dean Regas will provide a tour of the universe in a presentation titled you are here.
Following the presentations on Friday will be a star party from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm with telescopes, walks and constellation tours.
Saturday’s presentations will focus on Indigenous perspectives on night skies with Dr. Nancy Maryboy and Dr. David Begay presenting at 6:00 pm in a presentation titled Sharing the Skies: Navajo Constellations. Afterwards Navajo Winter Stories will be shared at 7:00 by Navajo Nation Council Delegate Curtis Yanito as well as Don Mose Jr. 
Saturday evening will also be another star party from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm with telescopes, walks and constellation tours.
Evening events will require red flashlights. White flashlights and cell phone screens have to be avoided as white light can take 20 minutes for night vision to recover. The event will have red flashlights available for future but the event will also have ways you can hack your regular flashlight including putting a red balloon over it or painting it with red fingernail polish.
The event will also feature daytime activities on Saturday including a full schedule at the Bluff Community Center including plenty of events for younger children including a portable planetarium, planet walk and scavenger hunt.
The portable planetarium will be doing showings at 10:00 and 11:00 am at the Bluff Community Center. 
Workshops at 10:00 am will also include tips for astrophotography with a cell phone as well as how to hack your red flashlight. Solar telescope viewings will also take place from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.
At 1:00 pm will be a planet walk to provide a to-scale walk through the solar system. At 2:00 pm Burak will be providing a presentation on how Bluff became an international Dark Sky community.
Other events will be occurring throughout Bluff on Saturday. Among them include a star stop scavenger hunt until 6:00 pm. Scavengers will visit local Bluff businesses for a chance to win prizes including the grand prize of celestron binoculars.
Saturday also includes cosmic rock painting for kids from 11:00 to 4:00 pm at Bluff Dwellings Resort and Spa. From 1:00 to 3:00 Bluff’s own astrophotographer will be at the Canyon Smokehouse to share his gallery and how he captures the night sky. At 3:00 pm Jonathan Till will provide a solar orientation in ancestral puebloan community at cemetery hill.
During the event parking will not be available at the Bluff Community Center to minimize car headlights and preserve visibility.
Event organizer Diana Davidson added her thanks for the efforts to make the event possible
“We have been amazed at all of the support we have received for this festival. From the Business Owners of Bluff, the town of Bluff, San Juan County Visitor Services, Southwest Adventure Tours, various lodging properties here in Bluff have given free lodging. So, it takes a village to put this festival on. And our community has really come together and I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.”
Burak added an open invitation for the event.
“People from the county, people from the four corners, people from all over come and take some time to celebrate with us and just go out. If you can’t come to Bluff, go outside, look up and admire your dark sky and enjoy it. because it’s a beautiful resource that we should all take a little bit of time to appreciate.”
A full schedule of events can be found online at BluffUtah.org