Depends on How You Look at It

I spent last week at a planetarium conference held by the SouthEastern Planetarium Association (SEPA). It was held in Kingsport, Tennessee, and the host planetarium was at Bays Mountain Park — a great place to visit and the meeting was really enjoyable. The theme of the meeting was “Storytelling” and since Mark and I bill ourselves at Loch Ness Productions as “Storytellers of the Universe” we fit right in. We presented a show that Mark did the soundtrack for, called SpacePark360: Geodesium Edition — it’s really a production of Dome3D, and the story was “have fun!” — since it is a thrill park ride set on other planets. It was well-received and great to see in the fulldome theater at Bays Mountain Park.

Since the theme was about telling stories, several speakers, such as Lynn Moroney, focused on it with storytelling experiences — and stories — of their own. The keynote speaker was Dava Sobel, author of Galileo’s Daughter, Longitude, and several other well-written books.

Why storytelling? Because planetarium folk — indeed, anyone who teaches (formally or informally) — are storytellers. And, most of us who grew up in planetariums learned to be storytellers. It’s part of our shared heritage as planetarium folk. So, hearing from storytellers is a good thing at a meeting. Of course, the stories we astronomy types tell are focused on the stars, but there’s always some amount of the human experience in them. That shows up in the star legends that various cultures ell about what’s in the sky.

The star patterns are logical choices, and so you find lots of drama among the constellations. The other day I wrote about the very useful ways that The Big Dipper helps us find our way around the sky. If you find the Dipper and instead of using the curve to find Arcturus, use the Pointer stars to find the North Star — but keep going! Eventually you run into a W-shaped (or M-shaped, or 3-shaped, all depending on what time of year you look) pattern. It’s called Cassiopeia.

Of  course, there’s a story about Cassiopeia that involves her husband the king, a mythical hero,a fair maiden, and a monster or two. A long time ago, back when there were a lot more shepherds than there are now, the Greeks thought that pattern reminded them of that queen — who, incidentally,  had quite a reputation for being self-absorbed, vain, all “me, me, me” (in the modern parlance).  And, let’s not forget taht she had a penchant for making her daughter’s life miserable.  She was such a good object lesson in how NOT to behave that the Greeks put her up in the sky as a reminder to all people (of any gender) that vanity and other character flaws are not admirable traits — even acting all self-absorbed does get you a glittery star pattern to your name! (Run over here for some more background on the tales and science of Cassiopeia.)

Those star tales like the rather lenthy and involved one about Cassiopeia are the stock in trade of starry storytellers like me and my colleagues in the planetarium profession when we want to acquaint people with the rudiments of getting around the sky.  I could just show you five stars in the shape of a smooshed M (or W), but if I tie it to a story, it’s more memorable. The constellations we describe are the stuff of stargazing. Those patterns help us find our way around the sky and give us reference points to directions, time of year, season, and many other useful bits of knowledge. So, check ’em out!