Maria Mitchell Association Monthly e-Comet Newsletter

JULY 2023

Closed July 4 in observance of Independence Day

Dear friends,

Happy Fourth of July! – We welcome another breathtaking season full of celebration, connecting with friends, beach days, sunrise and sunset chasing, stargazing our vibrant night sky, and taking in the endless warmth and beauty that surrounds us.

We’ve been enjoying these first few weeks of summer! Our Discovery Camp started and is in full swing. We held our annual Barn Owl Party complete with five adorable babies. A big thank you to Toni and Martin McKerrow for hosting this year. Bob Kennedy and Ginger Andrews did a superb job, coaxing the owls out of their nest and into stardom.

At the end of this month, we are hosting our annual gala on Polpis Harbor. We are extremely excited for incredible sweeping views, live entertainment by Fleetwood Macked, and delicious food prepared by Island Kitchen. Prepare for incredible auction items and an immersive performance from our class of 2023 interns. Tanya Forman, and Elizabeth Georgantas, our co-chairs, have put a great deal of effort into every detail, and I know it will be a memorable evening. Please purchase our Stargazer Gala tickets and join us in supporting the Maria Mitchell Association.

May every sunrise hold promise, and every sunset hold peace,

Joanna Roche

Executive Director

jroche@mariamitchell.org

Photos of the MMA Barn Owl Party

SAVE THE DATE: The Stargazer Gala

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Caravan with us to the shores of Polpis Harbor, to a field of tents, where we'll dine and dance under the very stars that have guided the explorers before us.

This incredible night is made possible with thanks to our sponsors! We hope you will join us in support of our biggest event of the year. Tickets on sale now!

Stargazer Gala Sponsorship Opportunities Available

Sponsorship opportunities for the Stargazer Gala, are now live. Please click here if you are interested in becoming (or returning as!) a sponsor this year.

As a reminder, your sponsorship enables us to:

• Serve over 20,000 learners of all ages each year through 525+ public programs
• Provide award-winning, STEAM-based summer camps and after-school programming
• Offer year-round science curriculum in Nantucket's public and private schools
• Conduct and publish internationally acclaimed scientific research
• Maintain our facilities and collections where science and history come to life.

Nantucket's Clean Water Coalition Presentation

Tuesday, July 11

4pm - 6pm

Great Harbor Yacht Club

The Maria Mitchell Association has partnered with the Nantucket Shellfish Association, the Nantucket Land Council, and fourteen other organizations and entities to form the Clean Water Coalition (CWC). The purpose of the CWC is to come together with the Town around a common goal of preserving clean water for Nantucket. Each group represented considers healthy water resources an essential element to our diverse interests and missions.

We also recognize that moving the agenda of improving water quality conditions forward, in our harbors and ponds, is a monumental task that will require public-private partnerships and broad community support. We want to ensure that clean water is prioritized with clear, measurable, and focused action items to support water quality on the island.

We need you too! Stay tuned for Clean Water Coalition communications on simple ways we can all protect Nantucket’s waters.

MMA Summer Pop - Up Boutique

July 29 - August 5

33 Washington Street

Opening Preview Night

with Blade and Bow Bourbon

Saturday, July 29

5:00pm - 7:00pm

Daytime Shows

Sunday, July 30 - Saturday, August 5

12:00pm – 6:00pm

The MMA Summer Boutique will offer an Opening Preview Night with delicious cocktails made by Blade and Bow Bourbon. Join us for an unforgettable experience of shopping, sipping, and mingling on a delightful summer evening.

The Daytime Boutique will provide an exciting lineup of vendors offering an array of unique products, such as handmade crafts, clothing, one-of-a-kind jewelry, home decor, and so much more. Your purchases will help support the Maria Mitchell Association.

Camp registration is open to MMA Members only.

Become a Member!

Dr. Rich Blundell's "The Art of Oika," Mixed Media

June 15 - July 12

33 Washington Street

The Art of Oika is a group show curated by the MMA’s Scientist-in-Residence, Dr. Rich Blundell. Oika refers to the intelligence of nature as felt by humans. Working in collaboration and the habitats of Nantucket, each artist in this exhibition embodies the deep ecological principles of Oika in their own unique manner. The show includes: Rita LeDuc, Dakota Clearwater LaCroix, Dena Haden, and Robert Peters.

Learn more here.

Tucker Finnerty Photography and Videography

July 13 - August 13

33 Washington Street

Join us for Artist-In-Residence Tucker Finnerty Art Opening

Thursday, July 13

5:30pm - 7pm

Tucker Finnerty is a photographer and videographer presenting a collection of vignettes chronicling the people and stories of coastal communities in the face of climate change. Having found a passion for storytelling through living abroad has been a guiding thread throughout his work. Stories of unique characters, endangered or fading arts, and harsh landscapes are areas where he enjoys bringing the camera the most. He is trying to shed a light on places that might otherwise be lost behind the falling curtains of time. His summers are spent on Nantucket working to capture images and characters within its coast and coastal communities. As a location with multiple iterations of a people who pull their livelihood from the surrounding waters, it has proven to be a place of immense wealth when looking for a good story.

Free to the public. Viewing of Tucker's work is by appointment for the duration of his residency.

Tanveer Karim

Join Us On Wednesday, July 5

At 7pm EST on July 5, as we welcome Tanveer Karim as one of our featured presenters for the July Science Speaker Series.

Measuring the Growth of the Universe with Multiple Datasets

How the largest structures in the Universe grew from the beginning of time to what we see today is a major puzzle in understanding the evolution of our Universe. Recent studies that measure the growth of structure in our Universe appear to disagree with each other depending on whether the data was obtained from the very early Universe or the more recent Universe.

In this talk, Tanveer Karim will contextualize this emerging exciting, yet puzzling, anomaly seen in cosmological datasets and what it may suggest about our Universe. Additionally, Karim will share a new measurement that hopes to shed light into this anomaly using multiple datasets. Finally, he will expand on how the ongoing and future cosmological surveys can potentially resolve this anomaly and paint a comprehensive picture of the evolution of the Universe. 

Read more here.

This talk is complimentary and presented via Zoom, please pre-register.

Rita Leduc

Join Us On Wednesday, July 12

At 7pm EST on July 12, as we welcome Rita Leduc as one of our featured presenters for the July Science Speaker Series.

Originally from New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, Rita Leduc is an interdisciplinary artist living in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her overarching practice is led by spirited explorations into ecosystems: environmental, human, and organizational.

In all her work, Leduc’s process is one of examination, absorption, participation, and becoming. Along this ever-evolving process, she uncovers pathways of understanding and possibility. In addition to Oika Expedition Nantucket, current engagements include "Ecology Extended," an Oika collaboration with Dr. Rich Blundell at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest; GROUNDWORK Interdisciplinary Retreat; The Place Collective; Arts@FSMLs, and additional Oika endeavors.

Oika artist Rita Leduc will speak about how her place-based, nature-grounded art practice aligns with Maria Mitchell's directive to, "Mingle the starlight with your lives." Referencing her artwork currently installed in and around the MMA grounds as part of the Oika art exhibition, she will describe how her process of direct, personal acquaintance with place creates work that is tethered on one end to "life"- specific relationships with place, and on the other to "starlight," i.e., universal concepts of reciprocity, continuity, and consciousness.

Read more here.

This talk is complimentary and presented via Zoom, please pre-register.

Dr. Brian Fields

Join Us On Wednesday, July 26

At 7pm EST on July 26, we welcome Dr. Brian Fields as one of our featured presenters for the July Science Speaker Series.

"When Stars Attack! Near-Earth Supernova Explosions and Their Radioactive Fingerprints"

The most massive stars are the celebrities of the cosmos: they represent a small fraction of all stars, but live extravagant lives and die in spectacular and violent supernova explosions. While these events are awesome to observe, they can take a sinister shade when they occur closer to home, because an explosion within a certain "minimum safe distance" would pose a grave threat to Earthlings.

We will discuss these cosmic threats to life and show compelling evidence of “near miss” supernova explosions from three and seven million years ago, that both rained their debris upon the Earth. This discovery allows us to study supernova ashes in the laboratory and confirms that nearby explosions are a fact of life in our Galaxy. We then press further, presenting recent evidence that supernova explosions could have caused biological extinctions on Earth around 360 million years ago. We conclude with tests of this hypothesis, including the search for trace amounts of radioactive supernova byproducts in fossils that witnessed the end of the Devonian period.

Read more here.

This talk is complimentary and presented via Zoom, please pre-register.

Photo by Tom Griswold

Bird On!

By Ginger Andrews

On Nantucket, July means summer is just getting under way. But in the Arctic, the post-solstice return of darkness is already noticeable. And this means the beginning of shorebird migration. Didn’t we just see them, enroute to northern nesting grounds? But the short Arctic season means they only get one chance to raise young, and they must do it quickly. The shift in daylight means that some of the bird world’s longest-distance migrants are already thinking about heading south.

Some pause only briefly on our beaches; some stay all winter. They don’t necessarily all move at once. Non-breeders may lag behind on wintering grounds. Some may have been delayed by bad weather, lack of food, or injury; others await maturity before attempting the rigors of raising young.

Sanderlings are perhaps everyone’s favorite shorebird; they are so active, running back and forth between waves, almost never caught. We are used to seeing them in winter grey and white, but in early summer a few might still be sporting the rufous feathers of the breeding season. Their black legs churn like wind-up toys as they run; their black bills disappear as they probe the damp sand. They are finding amphipods, small crabs, and marine worms. Oddly, they can cast a pellet with the indigestible bits as owls do. They are not averse to insect foods; in a pinch they can eat plant material.

They feed together in flocks, starting with smaller numbers, six to perhaps a dozen, but as the season progresses flock size increases. In July, they are just returning from Canadian islands in the high Arctic. They are heading for sandy beaches all over the world. On the east coast in the Americas, we may see them anywhere from Massachusetts to Tierra del Fuego.

Nighttime Marine Ecology Field Trip

Wednesday, July 5 and 19

9pm - 10pm

Nantucket Harbor teems with exciting marine life at night that is not visible in the day. Join our Aquarium staff to learn about the fish, squid, crabs, and other creatures that come out to feed, at night, in the shallow harbor waters.

This program is designed to be interesting for adults and children ages 10 and older. Nighttime Marine Ecology meets at the Maria Mitchell Aquarium at 28 Washington Street.

All registered children must be accompanied by a registered adult to participate in this program. Flashlights or headlamps will be provided, but it is recommended that you bring your own lighting.

Pre-registration is required for this nighttime program. Registration closes at 4pm on the day of the program.

Cost per participant: $30 (Members receive a 10% discount)

Marine Story Hour

Fridays, 10am - 11am

MMA Aquarium, 28 Washington Street

Enjoy this program designed for the young aquatic in your family! During each session, a MMA educator will read a marine or science themed book, introduce you to one of the MMA's animal friends, and will finish up with an activity related to the story. This is a reoccurring program, but the specific focus and materials provided will change each week.

This program is designed to be interesting for children ages 3 and older. This program meets at the MMA Aquarium at 28 Washington Street, Nantucket MA. All registered children must be accompanied by a registered adult to participate in this program.

Pre-registration is recommended as programs do fill up but walk-ins are welcome subject to availability.

Cost per participant: $15 (Members receive a 10% discount)

Open Nights:

Stargazing at Loines Observatory

Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays

9pm - 10:30pm (Two Sessions)

Family Stargazing at Loines Observatory

Fridays

9pm - 10pm

Join our professional astronomers for an impressive tour of Nantucket’s night sky. Each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the MMA will host two sessions of Open Night Stargazing at 9:00 PM - 9:45 PM and 9:45 PM - 10:30 PM.

On Fridays, there will be Family Stargazing from 9PM - 10PM.

MMA staff will guide you in viewing astronomical objects through our historic 8-inch Alvan Clark refractor and our modern 24-inch research telescope. Get a chance to view the Moon, planets, star clusters, nebulae, and even other galaxies! Learn about the cutting-edge research being conducted by Maria Mitchell Association's Observatory astronomers and interns and get all your astronomy questions answered!

This program begins promptly at the event start time so please arrive 10 minutes before the program start time. Please dress for the weather conditions at the event time. This program is geared toward teens and adults, but children are welcome to register with an adult guardian. At least one adult must sign up with children.

This program is weather contingent and will be cancelled in the event of inclement weather (rain or thunderstorm threat). Please check our website on the day of the event for updates on weather related cancellations; we will post by 5pm if the event will be cancelled.

Pre-registration is recommended as programs do fill up but walk-ins are welcome subject to availability.

Cost per adult participant: $22

Cost per youth participant: $12

Ticket cost includes a visit to the Natural Science Museum, the Aquarium, and the Mitchell House.

Cost is complimentary for Members

Celestial Stakeout

Sunday, July 23

4am - 5am

Loines Observatory, 59 Milk Street Ext.

Join the MMA professional astronomers and staff for a very special, early-morning Skygazing event at Loines Observatory. We will open up the MMA’s telescopes in the morning to catch live views of the crown jewels of the night sky, the great gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. Come marvel at Saturn’s beautiful ring system and try to spot Jupiter’s Galilean moons. As these planets will not be visible this summer during the evening hours, this is a great opportunity to catch a glimpse of these fantastic planets through the MMA telescopes – a sight you will not soon forget!

This program is designed to be interesting for adults and children of all ages. Celestial Stakeout will meet at the MMA Loines Observatory at 59 Milk Street. Nantucket MA. All registered children must be accompanied by a registered adult to participate in this program. Pre-registration is required for this program as space is limited to 75 participants. Registration closes at 11pm on the night before the program. In the event of inclement weather, this program will be cancelled and participants notified.

Cost per participant: $35 Adult, $15 Youth (Members receive a 10% discount)

Telescope Recommendations

If you’re interested in astronomy and looking to purchase your own backyard telescope, it’s important to first assess your level of interest, purpose, and budget. For many people, a good pair of binoculars can be a great way to start a backyard stargazing adventure. Binoculars are relatively inexpensive, easy to use, and have the bonus feature that they can also be utilized for other pursuits such as birding or nature watching.

For specific telescope recommendations, we spoke to former MMA NSF-REU Astronomy Intern and current MMA Astronomy Program Assistant, Nick Graber, who also works at Cloud Break Optics, a telescope store based in Seattle, WA.

· Celestron StarSense Explorer 102 (4" refractor, $469) is a top seller. It's portable but not tiny, comes with two eyepieces, and has a well-designed phone mount for Celestron's StarSense system. To use it, you download an app and then put your phone in a cradle so that it’s looking at the same stars the telescope is seeing. Then the app will act as your planetarium software and guide you to what you want to see! It's all manual, but the app will tell you "move more to the right, a little up," etc, until you find the object. It really makes observing quick and intuitive for people less familiar with the sky!

· SkyWatcher Dobsonians (6-10", $460-$910). Dobsonian telescopes are the best bang for your buck in terms of aperture (diameter of mirror or lens), which is key in visual observing, and they're really great for deep sky object viewing, since they're just huge light buckets. They also have a really nice user experience because they're all manual – essentially just a tube mounted on a lazy Susan -- no complicated hardware.

· Celestron NexStar SE line (5-8", $939-$1599) and Evolution line (6-9.25", $1679-$2849). All Schmidt-Cassegrain tubes, mounted on a motorized go-to fork arm. These are higher-tech than the first two. They come with a hand controller to adjust the telescope, and have a lot of catalogues programmed into them (Messier, NGCs, solar system, etc.), so that once you do a quick and easy alignment, you can have it go to whatever you want and track once it gets there. These are nice if you're trying to observe with other people and want to show them things, because you’ll spend less time finding targets and once you do, the targets won't drift out of frame as the sky moves. These are also fairly portable, so they're pretty popular as well!

For the very high end ($2,500 and up), we have heard good things about ease of use with the Unistellar Equinox 2 Smart telescope:

To see some additional telescope and binocular recommendations please see: Telescope Recommendations

Binocular Recommendations

Beginner Astrophotography Course Led by

Charity Grace Mofsen

Thursdays, August 3 - August 24

The MMA is offering an astrophotography program, led by island photographer – and the MMA’s August Artist-In-Residence, Charity Grace Mofsen – and MMA Telescope Engineer and Astronomer, Gary Walker. The astrophotography course will be held on Thursdays, beginning August 3 and continue through August 24, 2023.

This astrophotography program is geared towards beginner or budding astrophotographers interested in learning more about photographing celestial objects.

The course consists of four workshop-style classes with field work and live shooting time and costs $700. Classes will start with cell phones and DSLR's and progress to the RC24 inch telescope at Loines Observatory. Each class will build on the previous and fun-work will be assigned.

The first session will focus on an introduction to astrophotography. This will include a presentation of night shots taken around the island, as well as a demonstration of the equipment used to take such photos. The second session will be a trial run for the amateur photographers who will be able to practice camera setup, including manual settings, and practice shooting. The third session will consist of a continuation of practice shooting, while also focusing on capturing printable photos. The fourth and final session will be for post-processing. In this session, one will review images captured during the previous session and receive feedback. Also, an introduction to basic editing of the photos taken will be discussed.

Learn more here.

Looking Skyward:

A Hint of Life on a Moon of Saturn?

In this edition of "Looking Skyward," WCAI's John Basile talks with Dr. Regina Jorgenson, Director of Astronomy, of the Maria Mitchell Association about new findings of phosphorous on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Could it be a sign of life as we on earth recognize it?

Listen here!

Maria Mitchell's Attic

Learn more about Maria Mitchell and the MMA with "Maria Mitchell's Attic," a blog written on a weekly basis by MMA Deputy Director and Curator, Jascin Leonardo Finger.



Read here!

Throughout the summer, the MMA will send a weekly email featuring our programs, events, and opportunities to explore the land, sky, and sea of Nantucket Island.

Stop by the Hinchman House Natural Science Museum Gift Shop and check out our one of a kind gifts. We have a great collection of books, toys, and apparel. New items are arriving daily!

The Maria Mitchell Association creates opportunities for all to develop a life-long passion for science through education, research, and first-hand exploration of the sky, land, and sea of Nantucket Island.

Support the Maria Mitchell Association: