The general Utah pattern is for more rain in the wet season ending in May with June being the clearest month. But June is relatively more daytime limited than May. In July, summer heating makes for afternoon thunder storms which clear out at night. June will be hotter and more crowded and you will have to stay up later for the dark skies, but is the better bet. July and August are 100 degrees plus bake-your-brains months, best enjoyed on a raft trip. Thus, the Bryce Astronomy festival is held in June 25-28. http://www.nps.gov/brca/planyourvisit/astronomyprograms.htm Here's a summary of cloudy and clear skies by month for Salt Lake City - http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/SLCWeatherClimateTable... compiled from NOAA data at: http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/html/wx/climo.html Unfortunately, there is no comparable data for Cedar City and St. George. The closest available data is for Milford in central Utah, which shows a similar pattern to Salt Lake. http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/htmlfiles/westcomp.clr.html Astronomical twilight doesn't hit until 10pm in May and 11pm in June. http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/2006ParapegmaSLCUT.htm... In May, the full Moon is around the 20th; in June on the 18th. In June, the 3rd Quarter Moon is on the 26th, giving a couple of hours observing before moonrise during the Bryce astronomy festival on the 26th at 00:50am. If it were me, I shoot for either: 1) Social observing at the Bryce Festival around June 27 or 28. 2) Dark sky solo hunting between the new Moon on June 3 and first-quarter Moon on June 10. It's hard to find a campground anywhere in southern Utah on the major holidays that is not full, e.g. the weekends near: 1) Memorial Day. 2) July 4, or, 3) the statehood holiday on July 24. but with gas prices being high, more campsites may be open this year. There also are state parks with a separate reservation system. Enjoy. - Kurt ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs