Sleeping Bear Dunes, proximity to the stars
Astronomer Bob Moler. Photo by Nicole Marie Farrell
National Park star parties thrive under dark skies
By Sarah Bearup-Neal
Sun contributor
In the beginning, when the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was being created, opponents to the national park felt, among many things, the feds didn’t get it. Author Brian C. Kalt illustrates this point in his 2001 book Sixties Sandstorm, an historical look back at the park’s creation, and the tumult that accompanied that idea between the years 1961-1970. Kalt wrote: “The government, a native of the area maintains, simply did not understand the attachment Sleeping Bear area residents had to their land. ‘How,’ she asks, ‘does one begin to tell someone that they don’t want to move from the dunes because the stars are closer to the earth [there] than anywhere else in the world?’ “
There’s an irony here. An argument can be made that the stars stayed closer to the earth because people did move, because their homes and farms and land legacies were purchased by the feds to become the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Jerry Dobek. Photo by John Robert Williams
“Without the designation of the park,” said Jerry Dobek, professor of astronomy at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC), “what became the (Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore) would have been considered prime, Lake Michigan lakeshore property. The area would have been built up rapidly with homes. And, (development) would have been a detriment to the quality of the night sky … similar to other areas that are heavily light polluted like downtown Traverse City, or some of the lakeshore areas along Manistee and Muskegon.”
If there’s any question about the accuracy of Dobek’s assertion, one need only return to Sixties Sandstorm and turn to page 67 where Kalt wrote this: “Where there had been 266 residences within the proposed park boundaries in 1965, there were 436 in October 1970.”
With human habitation comes all manner of outdoor lighting, much of it excessive, inefficient and inappropriate, said Dobek, a Traverse City resident. According to the International Dark-Sky Association, of which Dobek is a founding member, unshielded lights produce glare and sky glow: light pollution of the first order that represents increases in energy consumption and harms the health and safety of humans and wildlife. And, oh. You can’t see the stars, either.
Sleeping Bear is one of the 10 darkest national parks, said Bob Moler, the creator and voice of “Ephemerist,” a daily program about the heavens heard for the last 41 years on Interlochen Public Radio. “It can get quite dark. The dark sky is one of the assets of the park.”
Viewing these assets is the M.O. behind the Sleeping Bear Sun and Star Parties Moler orchestrates through the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS). This year, they began in June at the Pierce Stocking Drive Stop #3, and will run through October at other locations throughout the park.
“A star party is an astronomical gathering of amateurs with telescopes, to look at objects in the sky,” Moler said. Sun parties are 4-6 p.m. Telescopes equipped with special filters allow viewers to witness flares and other solar action. Star parties get rolling at 9 p.m. GTAS members bring their own telescopes; non-member partiers are welcome with or without their own viewing device. The complete Sun and Star Party schedule can be found online here.
“The stars are a wonderful thing to see, to lay down and look at … a meteor-or-two go by,” Moler said. “A lot of people from the big cities haven’t seen the Milky Way.” Bright lights plus big city equal a compromised night sky.
The partnership between the GTAS and the local park came about five years ago. For decades, the GTAS’s celestial viewings took place at NMC’s J.H. Rogers Observatory at 1753 Brimley Road a few miles south of the Traverse City campus. There were occasional public viewing parties, but the observatory was primarily a teaching facility. In 2010, in outreach mode, the GTAS brought its sky show to a Friday Night Live gathering in downtown Traverse City – where Sleeping Bear Dunes Park people were likewise outreaching.
“A couple of guys from the park came to us and asked if we’d come to other places besides Front Street,” Moler said. And with that simple question, a star party was born.
The GTAS collaboration with the park includes training rangers in night sky lore, which they share with Sleeping Bear Dunes Park campers during weekly evening programs. The program, Starry, Starry Night, allows visitors to learn the locations and legends of the stars that fill the night sky. The program meets before sunset, and prepares attendees for an evening of stargazing on their own.
Dobek has had an interest in the night sky since he was a young boy. His mother started pointing out constellations to him at age 5. He got his first telescope at age 6. And he grew up to be an activist for the night sky, both at home – he’s worked with townships throughout northern Michigan crafting and co-authoring ordinances to preserve dark skies — and abroad through his work with the International Dark-Sky Association. So, let him tell us why a dark sky is important.
“I think that … humans spend too much time watching the stars on television and not enough time watching the stars in the sky. Too often we go about our daily tasks looking at our cell phones and knowing exactly what the tops of our shoes look like, and never notice the birds in the skies or view the Northern Lights. We are ‘missing out’ on what is happening above us,” Dobek wrote. “There’s not enough imagining or daydreaming in our society today, and that’s where inventions come from: new ideas and innovations.”
The Ancients studied the world above the earth to answer questions about existence. As time marched on with humans in tow, the questions of where we came from and where we’re going followed. We Moderns still look to the sky for insights into being and origin. Yet, for others, science and the spirit intersect.
“To me, as I lay down and look up at the dark starry sky, I confront the ultimate reality: I am on a spaceship. Earth, it’s called. The universe just isn’t up there or out there. It’s all around,” Moler wrote. “It (the dark sky) makes me want to learn more, to understand more about what I’m seeing, and to be concerned about our own spaceship Earth’s life support system.”
The people at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore get that. “Starry night skies and natural darkness are important components of the special places the National Park Service protects,” they write on their website. “National parks hold some of the last remaining harbors of darkness and provide an excellent opportunity to experience this endangered resource” — a clear view of the stars close overhead.
All programs are free, but a Park Entrance Pass or Annual Pass is required to park. Questions about weather and the cancellation of a Sun or Star Party can be answered by calling the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for a voicemail message, 231-326-4700, ext. 5005. For more information about the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society, visit Gtastro.org.
This is the fourth in a series of articles prompted by the National Park Service’s centennial celebration of its founding in 1916. One of the NPS’s birthday initiatives is “Find Your Park” — a multi-pronged program that invites people to discover the National Park in their backyard. Throughout 2015, the Sun is publishing stories about the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and relationships that people in our community have developed with it.
