Far Out Journal Club Episode 8 with Guest Rader Lane

From the outer limits of the Milky Way, the Alachua Astronomy Club has started the Far Out Journal Club. Produced by Rich Russin and hosted by past president Terry Smiljanich, the goal is to have a personal, in-depth visit with the authors, artists, musicians, curators, and other cultural icons who bring us the vast world of cultural science and science fiction.

Get ready for a special evening as we host Rader Lane for an online conversation about his career as an interpretive park ranger at the Grand Canyon National Park where his dark sky initiatives have earned him national and international awards.

 Rader Lane

Park Ranger

Division of Interpretation and Resource Education

Grand Canyon National Park

About our Guest:

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 manages the park’s Dark Skies Program, which includes the largest night sky festival in the National Park Service—the Grand Canyon Star Party—and other programs like the award-winning Astronomer in Residence Program and the Astronomy Volunteer 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 management of the Dark Skies Program helped earn Grand Canyon National Park the International Dark-Sky Place of the Year Award in 2019 from DarkSky International.

Rader has received numerous awards and accolades at art exhibitions and film festivals for his experimental night-sky films—he is a two-time recipient of Best of Show at the international-juried art exhibition on night skies, called Night Visions.

He was honored with the National Park Service's National Freeman Tilden Award for his interpretive work on night skies in our national parks in 2019, the highest award given to an interpretive park ranger in the National Park Service. In 2024, he was awarded with DarkSky International’s Dark Sky Defender Award.

In 2025, the IAU named asteroid “30280 RaderLane” in his honor. In his free time, Rader enjoys reading, writing, backpacking, playing chess, playing music, and taking long walks in the dark.

To further enhance your enjoyment of this episode, The Far Out Journal Club recommends you check out these links prior to the session.

https://www.grandcanyon.org/protect-grand-canyon/projects/dark-sky-preservation-and-programs

https://www.grandcanyon.org/experience-grand-canyon/residency-program/astronomer-in-residence

https://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/grand-canyon-star-party.htm

Join Zoom Meeting:

Http://bit.ly/FarOutJournalClub

https://sfcollege.zoom.us/j/91733146162?pwd=Ib7KD0Sd1UKU8cbeUR0u7bxbOzmSOj.1