The Great Lakes Association of Astronomy Clubs is hosting a free event for stargazers in Michigan from 5 p.m. to midnight on Friday, September 26, and Saturday, September 27. The association brings together amateur astronomy clubs and educational institutions who support activities centering on astronomy and the sciences.
The event, called Astronomy at the Beach, will take place at Kent Lake Beach in the Island Lake Recreation Area near Brighton and is open to experts and amateurs alike. (A Recreation Passport is required for vehicle entry into Michigan state parks.)
Astronomy at the Beach began 29 years ago with the Ford Astronomy Club, the organization said, and has since expanded to include all the astronomy clubs in southeast Michigan as well as to other organizations like Wayne State University and the Michigan Science Center.
Participants will be able to view distant planets, stars, and galaxies through more than 50 high-powered telescopes, said Liam Finn, the vice president of the astronomy association. He said the telescopes are provided by amateur astronomers. Some years they have close to 100 telescopes.
The Astronomy at the Beach event will feature interactive science demonstrations and expert speakers. The keynote presentation will be from Brother Guy Consolmagno, a planetary scientist who until recently served as the director of the Vatican Observatory.
The theme this year is Saturn, because its rings will be visible in the sky just after sunset. Globular and open clusters, which are groups of hundreds of thousands of stars gravitationally bound to one another, will also be visible. Finn said the Milky Way is currently overhead, and planetary nebulas, supernova remnants, and galaxies can also be spotted.
Finn added that they expect clear skies and fair weather, a good omen for the weekend. He said event organizers will explain to the stargazers unfamiliar with astronomy the array of objects they are seeing in the sky each evening.
Finn explained that the event is a way to kindle curiosity in stargazers, because the average person doesn’t know what goes on in space and does not have access to telescopes. “When you look through a telescope and see something cool, that triggers something in your mind that says, I’d like to see more of this type of stuff,” Finn said.
“The whole idea of the event is STEM outreach,” he continued. Several members of the astronomy association volunteer to go to schools and share their knowledge on math, physics, and astronomy.
“The public wants to learn more, and we’ve seen the demand for that, we’ve seen that they're interested. There is no real public outreach in the area, and our whole goal is to meet that need.” According to Finn, 3,000 to 5,000 people attend the event over the course of two days.
“We trigger the minds of people to say: this looks like fun, we can learn a lot from this, this is something I want to do when I grow up,” he added. “The overall goal is to try and share our love for astronomy and physics with the general public, with future scientists and future engineers.”
