Monthly Archives: September 2021

The Osborn Cannonball House Museum will break it’s pandemic slumber to open for Scotch Plains Day, Sunday October 3rd from 11am to 3pm. Come and get a preview of our new exhibit on the women’s suffrage movement. The museum is adjacent to the Town Green at 1840 Front St, Scotch Plains, NJ 07076.

In a presentation called “One Small Step: The Voyages of Apollo,” amateur astronomer Alan Witzgall will present a program on the journey of the first manned spaceflight to land on the moon at the September meeting of the Historical Society of Scotch Plains and Fanwood. The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 28, at the Shady Rest Scotch Hills Country Club, 820 Jerusalem Rd. (at the corner of Plainfield Avenue) in Scotch Plains.

Witzgall, past president of Amateur Astronomers, Inc., of Cranford, also will review the missions that followed Apollo 11 and discuss reasons to expand space exploration and return to the moon. He will augment his presentation with genuine lunar rocks and other celestial specimens.

The speaker, who earned a bachelor’s degree in earth and planetary science from Kean University, is the recording secretary and chair of the Instrument Qualifications Committee for Amateur Astronomers, Inc. In that capacity, he trains the group’s members in the use of the telescopes at Sperry Observatory on the campus of Union County College and conducts research in astronomy. Witzgall is a senior optician for ESCO Optics in Oak Ridge, New Jersey.