Monthly Archives: July 2008

Planetarium

Planetarian

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What Does It Mean

Image:20071029 Adler Planetarium.JPGFor a good many years I’ve been a writer. One of my mainstays is planetarium shows (or, if you like, in today’s new digital world, I write for fulldome video). Last week I attended the once-every-two-years meeting of the International Planetarium Society, held this year in Chicago, Illinois. We had around 600 attendees from around the world, and it was a very busy and rewarding meeting.

That’s the Adler over to the left. It actually has two domed theaters and one “flat screen” theater, and we had several sessions there throughout the week, seeing each other’s shows (I had one in the mix) as well as Adler’s panoply of presentations.

During the meeting, we discussed what we are, as planetarians. The word “planetarian” wasn’t in the dictionary for a long time; it now is online. It is defined in the Random House Unabridged dictionary as:

1. a staff member at a planetarium.
2. an inhabitant of a planet.
3. of or pertaining to a planetarian.

All of us fit under the second category, so that’s kind of a gimme. Those of us who work at planetariums or with planetariums (or planetaria, if you like) fit under categories 1 and 3, interchangeably.

But, there should be a fourth description that tells what we actually DO in those domed theaters. There are many tasks that we accomplish, but they are mostly all related to telling good stories in the dome about astronomy and space science. So, for example, I write scripts and produce shows that accomplish that goal, and together Mark and I have created many shows that planetarium theaters use.

There are others who build equipment for the theaters, install it, test it, and then go out and sell it to theaters. They’re also planetarians. There are those who use the domed theaters as classrooms, or visualization labs to test new visual ideas. All are equally valid members of the society of planetarians.

I think that the fourth definition is dimensionless in that it really is expandable and includes people who work at traditional planetariums as well as at the new digital fulldome theaters. We all work in the same kind of domed space, telling stories of the cosmos.

astronomy

A Starry Question at the Check-out Counter

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Are Stars Scary?

Let’s take a break from black holes and come home to Earth for a bit. A while back I was in line at a store and was talking to the person ahead of me about what I do. (I was wearing a Hubble Space Telescope t-shirt, which tipped her off, I suppose, that I might be one of THOSE people…)

She asked me if there was anything in the sky that could scare kids. She wanted to take her 8-year-old son to the Museum of Science to look through a telescope, but didn’t want him to get scared. I asked her if he was easily scared and she said that he wasn’t. So I asked what she was worried about. She finally admitted that she thought he might learn something that would scare him, like the fact that our Sun might go supernova.

Now that’s an interesting concept-the possibility of our Sun blowing up as a frightening thing to an eight-year-old child. Most kids I know of that age are really INTO making explosive noises, and their cartoons are chock-full of such stuff. So, there had to be something more to this concern. In the course of our conversation, it became pretty clear that she didn’t want her child to be frightened by science and she was worried that astronomy might have too much violence for a young child.

Just to allay any concerned folks who may be reading this, the Sun isn’t going to go supernova. Its death is going to be more gentle, as star death goes, and it isn’t going to happen for five billion years or so. So, there’s not much to worry about in the near term, and certainly not for an eight-year-old.

I think what intrigued me about this mom’s concern was that her son would get scared of something like this simply by looking through a telescope at other stars. I did mention to her that looking at stars is normally something very enjoyable and thought-provoking. And, I did point out that looking at the Sun was NOT a good idea and I wouldn’t recommend it. I told her that the folks at the museum usually look at planets, especially since those are easy to find in light-polluted skies.

She decided that would be cool, so I guess one of these nights, her son will get to see some celestial delights through a big telescope. I can just about guarantee that he won’t be scared. But he might come home and want a telescope…