Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 54 minutes, setting at 6:55, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:01. The Moon, 3 days past new, will set at 8:12 this evening.

The tree leaves are beginning to turn to reds and yellows as we advance into autumn. The native Anishinaabek peoples, whose homeland we share, have a story about how that came to be. Of how a magical weasel-like creature called the Fisher or, in their native language, Ojiig, brought summer to the Earth from Skyland. For his trouble, he was shot with an arrow in his only vulnerable spot, his tail. As he fell to Earth Gichi Manitou, the Great Spirit, caught him and placed him in the sky where we see the Great Bear and the Big Dipper. Every late autumn night we see his tail, the handle of the dipper, slowly swooping down to the horizon where his bloody tail paints the trees with their autumn colors.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

For my take on how the Fisher brought summer to the Earth, click here.

Extra: About last Saturday’s partial solar eclipse

Last Saturday I went to the Betsie Valley District Library in Thompsonville, MI for the partial solar eclipse that was visible from that location. Unfortunately, it was cloudy. It wasn’t solid clouds, so there probably was a chance at seeing something. What I did was to give an alternate program about the total solar eclipses I’ve traveled to since 1963, and a look at next April’s total solar eclipse. I was getting ready to finish up when I noticed that there were shadows outside. That meant that the Sun was out. We stopped there and went outside and got to witness at least the maximum part of the eclipse. We had about 15 minutes before the clouds came in again. So we were able to see at least part of this partial eclipse.