Mon Aug 24, 2026 THE PLUTO VOTE
Twenty years ago, on August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted Pluto out of the planet club. At the time the IAU had about 10,000 astronomers as members, but on the last day of their conference only 424 of them voted. And you had to be in the room to vote – no mail-in ballots. It was in Prague by the way. Pluto lost by just 80 votes. Members of the American Astronomical Society weren’t happy about the vote. Neither was Alan Stern, the principal scientist who oversaw the successful New Horizons mission to Pluto that took place in 2015, revealing an incredible world with nitrogen ice plains and great water ice mountains. And unlike Venus and Mercury, Pluto has a moon. Strike that, it has five moons – Charon, Nix, Styx, Hydra and Kerberos – what a fascinating world!
Tue Aug 25, 2026 HALLSTROM OPEN HOUSE, LUNAR ECLIPSE 1
On Thursday, August 27th there will be a free open house at the Hallstrom Planetarium on the Massey Fort Pierce campus of Indian River State College in Fort Pierce. It’s going to start pretty late in the evening – 9 p.m., but that’s because we’ll also be providing guided views of that night’s lunar eclipse, which begins around 10:30 p.m. and goes until 1 o’clock in the morning! This eclipse is nearly a total one, and we should be able to see the earth’s shadow roll across the moon’s face until a little after midnight, when only a very small amount of sunlight still glows along the top of the moon. At this time, we should see our lunar neighbor take on a coppery orange glow. Come on out to the Hallstrom Planetarium and enjoy a truly out-of-this-world sky event!
Wed Aug 26, 2026 FULL MOON OF AUGUST
Today’s Skywatch was written by my student assistant, Isabella Gargiulo. If you look up at the sky this evening, you will see the nearly full moon. This moon is also known as the Sturgeon Moon, after the fish that was an important staple to many Native American Tribes. Due to harvesting crops at this time of year, the Algonquin referred to this moon as the Corn Moon, while the Assiniboine named it the Black Cherries Moon for the period in which chokecherries, a major medicinal food source, were ripe for picking. Another common name for this period in the moon's cycle is the Mountain Shadows Moon, which originated from the Tlingit Tribe. To the Cherokee, though, this is the Drying Up Moon, appropriate after a long hot spell of summer weather.
Thu Aug 27, 2026 PLANETARIUM OPEN HOUSE, LUNAR ECLIPSE
Today’s Skywatch was written by planetarium assistant Vela De la Mare. The Hallstrom Planetarium begins its new season of programs tonight. At 9 p.m. we will open our doors at the Science Center on the Massey campus of Indian River State College in Fort Pierce to explore our upcoming schedule, including the exciting return of laser shows, all to be hosted in our freshly renovated planetarium theater. We’re starting late for good reason - around 10:30pm, the sky will be putting on a show of its own, with a nearly total lunar eclipse. We’ll watch Earth’s shadow creep across the moon’s surface, until it almost completely covers it, just after midnight. There will be telescopes set up outside, but in the event of poor weather, we’ll be screening the eclipse live, inside under the Hallstrom Planetarium dome. It’s going to be an incredible night, and we hope to see you there!
Fri Aug 28, 2026 THE CRAB NEBULA
On the night of August 28th, 1758 the Crab Nebula was discovered with a telescope. The nebula's discoverer, Charles Messier of France, thought at first that it was a comet, which when seen far out in space, resembles a small fuzzy splotch of light. But unlike comets, this fuzzy object didn't move against the starry background. Hour after hour, night after night, the thing refused to budge. Disappointed, Messier catalogued this object as Messier #1, or M-1, and from then on, whenever he saw it, he moved on to more promising candidates. But when bigger telescopes were invented, we found that M-1, the Crab Nebula, is most impressive: it is the exploded remains of a star that went supernova. Tonight M-1 can be found, with a telescope, low in the east northeast, a little after 1 AM, behind Alhekka, the forward horn tip of Taurus the Bull.
