Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

We (The Grand Traverse Asteonomical Society (GTAS)  Sidewalk Astronomers) had a very astronomical weekend.  Friday night we set up outside the township hall in Empire, MI for the talk by astronaut Greg Johnson.  He’ll be the pilot on the last Space Shuttle mission.  We had quite a crowd in the rather stuffy town hall.  Representing the GTAS were some of the usual suspects:  Richard Kuschell, Gary Carlisle, Bill Hathaway, Ron and Jan Uthe and yours truly.    It was mostly clear with a few clouds popping up at inopportune times.  We had the society’s 25 inch telescope, Gary’s 8 inch and my 8 inch telescopes parked in parking spaces to view the planets and other dark sky objects.

We packed up by midnight.  Richard and I went to the Lanphier Observatory in Glen Arbor in the quest to spot the dwarf planet Pluto.  Richard’s daughter and friend came up.  Well half of us spotted it.  I nailed the exact position, but couldn’t spot Pluto.  Richard said he could see it.

Saturday night the sidewalk group ended up in the plaza in front of the City Center building on Cass and State Streets in Traverse City for the Cherry Festival fireworks finale.    We had some looming clouds come in from the west, but got the planets in and a couple of other objects in.  The fireworks were great abd the crowds were great.  beside the Empire group we were joined by Eileen Carlisle, our unofficial photographer and Joe Brooks society president in very astronomical duds.

Pictures to come on the GTAS web site: www.gtastro.org.

It’ll be Friday July 9 (tonight) at 8pm Empire township hall.  NASA Astronaut Greg Johnson, who has family in the area, will speak.  The GTAS is invited to set up scopes.  We may have our 25″ scope, plus I’ll bring mine.