Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, September 12th.  The sun will rise at 7:17.  It’ll be up for 12 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 7:58.   The moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:08 this evening.

Tomorrow night will be the last of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore held on Saturday by the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society for the year.  Never fear the GTAS has three more events planned in October:  a lunar eclipse on the 8th, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore’s 44th anniversary star party on the 21st, and a partial solar eclipse at sunset on the 23rd.  Saturday’s event will be held at the Dune Climb starting around 9 p.m., and the featured attractions will be the wonders of the summer Milky Way.  These are star clusters and nebulae or clouds of gas, some expelled by dying stars and others where new stars are being born.  The Dune observing events will be canceled if completely overcast or rain.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS) is available to host sun and star parties around the Grand Traverse Area.  Below are photos from two recent visits to the Betsie Valley District Library in Thompsonville, MI.  First an evening visit inauguration of their new library building, and a daytime visit for the youngster’s reading program.  The photos courtesy of  Librarian Michelle Guerra and her staff.  Contact the society via email at info@gtastro.org.

He just saw Jupiter through the GTAS 25″ telescope.

What’s in this telescope? (A really small Jupiter.)

A crowd gathers to view Saturn and Jupiter.

During both the evening and the daytime visits I take the folks through the sky using Stellarium pointing the constellations and telling their stories.

GTAS member Gary Carlisle shows the Sun through his telescope.

GTAS member Richard Kuschell shows his meteorite collection. Always a hit.

Here I am showing the kids how a telescope works.

Using a telescope solar filter to show how small the sun looks.