Celebrating IYA with the President

Woohoo!  My friend Martin Ratcliff, who works for Sky-Skan, Inc., had the chance of a lifetime to share astronomy with the President of the U.S. and his family.  The White House had a star party last night, and Martin took a Sky-Skan digital planetarium system to show off the stars.  By all accounts, it looked like a great time!  Congrats to Martin, Steve, and all our friends at Sky-Skan — and a hearty “Welcome to the starry skies” to President Obama and his family.

What makes it even cooler for us is that we have the same planetarium system at Loch Ness Productions, and so in a sense, “our” system was in the White House.  Very, very cool.

It’s been a great two weeks of sharing astronomy for me, too.  I’ve been aboard the Coral Princess cruise liner, giving astronomy lectures and trying like heck to have a star party.  The weather hasn’t cooperated too much, but that hasn’t stopped me and the folks aboard the ship from talking about astronomy and sharing stories about the cosmos.  What I’ve found is that astronomy has the capacity to amaze and excite people of all ages — from the White House to a shipload of folks from all walks of life who are still wide-eyed about traveling — not just the seven seas, but also the universe.

Happy IYA all–keep the starry party going!