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‘New Horizons’ lead Alan Stern.

Above image: NAU’s Cline Library | photo by NAU

The I Heart Pluto Festival boasts an impressive lineup of speakers, including Jim Christy, the discoverer of Pluto’s moon Charon, and Alden Tombaugh, Clyde Tombaugh’s son. Among them is planetary scientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant, speaker, and author Dr. Alan Stern, leader of the unprecedented New Horizons mission. After famously exploring Pluto and its moons, the New Horizons interplanetary space probe is now venturing deep into the outer reaches of the solar system in the furthest exploration in the history of humankind.

On February 15th, 2020, Dr. Stern will speak in the Assembly Hall at NAU’s Cline Library. He will be discussing his experience with leading the New Horizons mission, including the decades-long commitment and persistence it took, the challenges that he and his team faced, and the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission.

After his presentation, Dr. Stern will be available for a signing of his and David Grinspoon’s spellbinding book Chasing New Horizons, which tells the story of the incredible men and women behind the New Horizons mission and the challenges they faced along the way.

Clyde Tombaugh at the Pluto Discovery Telescope

Pictured above: U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station

Tickets for the I Heart Pluto Festival are available at three different levels: Standard Admission, the Pluto Lover Package, and the VIP Pluto Experience. While all three ticket levels provide access to the main events of the festival on February 15th, only the VIP Pluto Experience will provide festival-goers with an all-access look behind the scenes of Pluto’s discovery. VIPs will also receive a special commemorative I Heart Pluto t-shirt and can koozie upon their arrival to the observatory.

The VIP Lowell Tour will begin in the Rotunda Museum at 9 am. This tour features a rare visit to the plate vault to view one of the two glass plates Clyde Tombaugh used to discover Pluto—the other plate is currently on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.. VIPs will also see the apartment and office of Clyde Tombaugh and the fully-restored 13-inch astrograph that Tombaugh used to discover Pluto in 1930. Afterwards, VIPs will visit the site of the telescope where observatory staff unknowingly captured images of Pluto 15 years before Tombaugh’s groundbreaking discovery. The tour will finish at the famed Zeiss Blink Comparator, just in time for its rededication ceremony.

NAU’s Science Lab Building on North Campus.

After taking a step back in time with the Lowell Tour, VIPs will take a step forward to the present and future of planetary research as they embark on the VIP Bus Tour. This tour will depart from Lowell Observatory 1 pm, taking VIPs to Northern Arizona University’s campus to get an all-access look at the various astronomical research labs conducting cutting-edge research on the planets of our solar system and beyond. At 2:15 pm, the bus will leave for the U.S. Naval Observatory (Flagstaff Station) where Charon was discovered in 1978. There, VIPs will be given a tour of the facility as they learn about its past and present research.

The bus will arrive back at Lowell Observatory at 3:45, in time for the Pluto Art Gallery Reception and a tasting of Mother Road Brewing Company’s limited-edition Pluto Porter. VIP tickets also include complimentary access to Pluto Discovery Day at downtown Flagstaff’s Orpheum Theater on February 18th, which requires a separate ticket with general admission.

The VIP Pluto Experience is perfect for anyone with a passion for Pluto’s rich history, as well as an eye on the future of astronomical research. For those who love Pluto but don’t need all the bells and whistles, the Pluto Lover Package includes access to all general admission events as well as a commemorative I Heart Pluto t-shirt and can koozie.

View package details and purchase tickets here.

On February 18th, 2020, Flagstaff’s Orpheum Theater will host Pluto Discovery Day in conjunction with the Flagstaff Film Festival and Downtown Business Alliance. The 18th will mark the 90th anniversary of Clyde Tombaugh’s astonishing discovery of Pluto, what was then considered to be the mysterious ninth planet in our solar system.

Lowell historian Kevin Schindler will kick off the evening with a step back in time to 1930, recounting the events of the momentous day that Clyde Tombaugh first identified Pluto. Then, planetary scientist Will Grundy and NAU professor Steve Tegler will discuss the exciting research being done on Pluto at Lowell Observatory and other locations in Arizona.

City of Flagstaff officials will talk about what Pluto means to Flagstaff, “The Home of Pluto.” The talented beer makers at Mother Road Brewing will introduce their limited-edition Pluto Porter (learn more about it here). Guests will have the opportunity to purchase Pluto Porter and other drinks throughout the evening. Culinary experts from Karma Sushi Bar and Grill will share the inspiration behind their delicious Pluto Roll, a sushi roll stuffed with tempura lobster, snow crab, cream cheese, vegetables and sauces. Finally, the Flagstaff Film Festival will end the evening with the presentation of several movie shorts highlighting the spirit of adventure and discovery.

Tickets for Pluto Discovery Day at the Orpheum are available here.

The I Heart Pluto Festival poster for 2020, created by Tyler Nordgren

With the first annual I Heart Pluto Festival just around the corner, Mars Hill is buzzing with extraterrestrial excitement. With our guest speakers lined up, events scheduled, and a limited-edition Pluto beer fermenting in Mother Road Brewery’s barrels, you can say that it’s all finally becoming real.

Of course, an exciting festival needs an equally exciting promotional poster to represent it. To achieve this, we enlisted the help of physics professor, astronomer, author, and artist Tyler Nordgren. Nordgren is known for his distinct vintage artstyle, as well as his fierce dedication to preserving America’s dark skies (check out his Milky Way poster series). His artwork highlights the wonders of places such as national parks, historical sites, and even distant planets—all in a style reminiscent of the colorful travel and tourism posters of the 1930’s and 40’s. Lowell patrons may find Nordgren’s work familiar, as his designs appear on a number of posters, stickers, and t-shirts currently available for purchase in Lowell’s Starry Skies Shop.

The eye-popping poster Nordgren created for the I Heart Pluto Festival features Clyde Tombaugh looking through the A. Lawrence Lowell Astrograph’s guide scope as the Pluto Dome rises up behind him. The icy ninth planet itself is alongside its moon Charon, filling in the blank spaces of the number 90. Flagstaff’s iconic San Francisco Peaks occupy the bottom of the poster, with pine trees silhouetted against their base and a starry night sky above. All in all, Nordgren cleverly and beautifully captures the essence of the festival and the spirit of Flagstaff in a single image.

While we celebrate Pluto’s legacy, we will also celebrate the return of a vital piece of its history: the Zeiss Blink Comparator. The Blink was the very instrument Clyde Tombaugh used to discover the mysterious ninth planet in 1930. It may surprise some to know that Pluto was not identified visually while looking through a telescope, but rather in an office, as Tombaugh painstakingly compared two photographic plates at a time. (Learn more about Pluto’s discovery here.) For the past few years, the Blink had been on loan to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where it was displayed in the Exploring the Planets gallery.

The Blink arrived back at Lowell Observatory on November 13, 2019. It was promptly returned to its display case in the Rotunda Museum, where it will continue educating guests about Pluto’s discovery and ongoing legacy. The Blink will be officially rededicated at 10:30am on Saturday, February 15, when the I Heart Pluto Festival is underway.

Kevin Schindler (left) and Lauren Amundson (right) unbox the Blink Comparator.

The Blink is returned to the Rotunda Museum.

Percival Lowell postulated the existence of a planet beyond Neptune and began to search for it in 1905.

He spent his remaining 11 years in a mathematical and observational search for the elusive “trans-Neptunian” planet. Upon Lowell’s death in 1916, the search was suspended while the Observatory went through protracted legal wrangling about Lowell’s estate. In 1927, once the estate was finally settled, Percival’s brother — Harvard University President A. Lawrence Lowell — provided the funds needed to construct the telescope and dome you can still see every day here on guided tours.

The new telescope was completed in 1929, and the Observatory hired a farm boy from Kansas named Clyde Tombaugh, who had impressed director V. M. Slipher with some unsolicited sketches, to help renew the search.

The process was laborious: Tombaugh would photograph the same part of sky several days apart and use a Zeiss Blink Comparator to detect the motion of a nearby planet against the more distant “fixed” stars. Once Tombaugh got going toward the end of 1929, the discovery came remarkably fast: on February 18, 1930, he detected the distant planet on plates taken on the 23rd and 29th of January.

The discovery was announced March 13, 1930. On the evening of March 12, director V.M. Slipher sent a telegram to the Harvard College Observatory. The telegram’s message was used to create Harvard College Observatory Announcement Card 108, which officially announced the new planet’s discovery and was released on the 13th. Slipher wrote a more detailed account of the discovery and printed it as a Lowell Observatory Observation Circular, also releasing it on the 13th. Astronomer Carl Lampland was busy as well on this day. On behalf of the Observatory, he presented the Lowell Prize to the top mathematics student at Arizona State Teacher’s College at Flagstaff (today known as Northern Arizona University). The ceremony was in front of a 500-person audience in Ashurst Hall. As part of his speech, Lampland made the first public announcement of the new planet’s discovery. Unfortunately, few, if any, of the audience members heard this important message, since the soft-spoken Lampland could not be heard in the echo-filled, uncarpeted room. The announcement date was significant, for it had been March 13, 1781 that William Herschel discovered Uranus. Also, March 13, 1930 would have been Percival Lowell’s 75th birthday, a fitting tribute to the man whose inspiration led to the discovery of this new planet by Clyde Tombaugh.