09/02/2022 – Ephemeris – Learn about our galactic neighbors and a star party tonight!

This is Ephemeris for Friday, September 2nd. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 8:17, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:07. The Moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 11:18 this evening

Tonight at 9 pm, the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will have an in-person meeting at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory. The meeting will also be available via Zoom. The program will be presented by Don Flegel, our Vice President, who is also working to get our large 25-inch telescope tracking again. The brains of the telescope are now in Australia being worked on, so hopefully it will be ready for next year. Anyway, his talk will be about our galactic neighbors. If it’s clear, there will be a star party following the meeting. The observatory is located south of Traverse City off Birmley Road, between Garfield and Keystone roads. A Zoom link will be available at gtastro.org before the meeting.

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 the star party, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible. Some of the brighter deep sky objects should also be available. Deep sky objects are what astronomers call telescopic objects beyond the solar system such as star clusters, nebulae (clouds of gas and dust from which stars form, or created by the death of stars). And most distant of all, galaxies, other Milky Ways. One such galaxy is the Great Andromeda Galaxy, visible tonight. Visually, in a telescope, only the core is bright enough to be seen. Photography will reveal it to be as wide as 6 full moons. Two of its satellite galaxies can also be spotted.