Under the thick wool blanket of a slightly more humid-than-predicted Michigan dusk, an astrophysicist paces about. His charcoal blazer and smart tie are slowly being pulled into the delicate caress of evening.

“These conditions are far from perfect,” he utters.

Like some kind of magic, the night slowly began to cooperate. But at the end of the day, a lot of stargazing is gambling.

Dumb luck.

But this clearly is not Professor Ilias Cholis’s first rodeo. With the improvisation skills possessed only by the most talented and hungry of young acting talent– the professor enthusiastically kept the show rolling as he waited for the humidity to dissipate.

A necessity for optimal viewing of celestial objects.

“This is my favorite app for making sure where any object is for viewing,” Professor Cholis said. He opened the Stellarium app on his phone.

It showed a painterly, technicolor and real-time rendition of the night sky. Except seen with the purity known only to the ancients– and those with the privilege to enter low-light, pollution-regulated areas.

“I use it for teaching as well; it has a desktop version that makes it especially useful,” he said.

And the audience thought that it was all part of the show.

The night offered perfect timing. As the professor finished explaining the app’s features, the haze in the sky cleared and the sun set well below the horizon.

The sky above the student organic farm revealed an inviting purple-black glow of evening.

The professor hurried to retrieve his binoculars.

“Because Venus and Mercury are closer to the Sun,” he explained as he jogged, “they are only visible for a few minutes just after sunset and just before sunrise.”

He raced the clock to provide detailed instructions for viewing Venus. Under the lens, the spectral dot on the sky became a slightly more detailed speck.

The effect upon the moon was much more remarkable, however.

What all have known since their earliest memory of an enchanting and hazy summer night as a beautiful, yet haunting overseer is so much more than that.

“The moon was formed about 4.5 billion years ago,” the professor kept an active explanation with each point of interest, “when an object collided with Earth.”

After this collision, what we now know as the moon stabilized in orbit. It was then bombarded by asteroids during the solar system’s tumultuous teenage era, earning its distinct pockmarked appearance.

As the professor explained how to set up a telescope and view our planet’s only child, the moon’s battle scars became undeniable.

Seas of Tranquility and Serenity, the two dark plains on the surface, were formed by calamity and chaos.

After a hunt for every faint object, the professor moved to explanations of more distant islands within the ocean of the cosmos.

Artists, explorers, priests, poets, prophets and even corporations– Subaru and The Seven Sisters for one of many examples– have looked to the stars for inspiration since their very conception.

Oakland students, staff and faculty are encouraged to uphold that innate human tradition, with material and know-how provided by Professor Cholis, by registering for the stargazing events on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Weather permitting, of course.