Category Archives: astronomy education

astronomy education, astronomy news, Astronomy outreach, griffith observatory

Galaxy Shakes and Earthquakes

Leave a comment
Colliding galaxies as seen by HST
Colliding galaxies as seen by HST

It’s a fun time to be a spacewriter. A bunch of cool press releases hit my desk today. The first one was from the Hubble Space Telescope folks, showing off a perennial favorite: the Antennae. I thought the headline on the European Hubble site was a nice (if subtle) commentary on world affairs: “Colliding Galaxies Make Love, not War.” The US Hubble site was a bit less political, probably fearing the wrath of White House operatives if it used the European approach, but, nonetheless, the picture is magnificent!!

The second one was from Keck Observatory. It sits high atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai’i, and as you might imagine, suffered a little damage from the earthquake on Sunday. In fact, I’ve heard that several telescope facilities on the mountain have sustained varying amounts of damage, with engineering crews working to make things right again for the observers who have time on the mountain.

One of the groups I work with is the PIO at Gemini. In their press release they state that they have a few structural issues to deal with, and it will be a few days before they’re ready to resume regular science operations. I did some observing on Mauna Kea back in the 90s, while Gemini was still under construction, and I remember thinking about what it would be like if nearby Mauna Loa started erupting again. The last time it did so was in the 1980s, and a friend of mine who worked on Mauna Loa at the time said it was pretty interesting to watch from a distance, but certainly scary thinking about how close the flows came to Hilo!

Finally, my other favorite observatory—Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles—is getting a ton of press for its upcoming re-opening. Regular readers know that I’ve been working with the design crew for the new exhibits as the senior exhibits writer. So, I’m pretty excited when I see great stories coming out about the place. And I can’t wait to get out there and see it for the opening! Wanna know more? Check out these links:

LA’s landmark Griffith Observatory poised to re-open.

Sky Temple Reborn.
This project has been one of the most interesting, fun, challenging, and fulfilling as any of the scripts I’ve done over the past 20 or so years. And, the building is so beautiful that it will continue to be, as it has been since the 1930s, a draw to visitors near and far. I think I told somebody once that it drew on every skill I had as a writer, a scientist, and a researcher, and taught me a few new ones as well. It’s fun!

astronomy education

Communicating Astronomy

Leave a comment
Williams College Observatory, Williamstown, MA
Williams College Hopkins Observatory, Williamstown, MA

I just finished a four-week stint teaching a course at Williams College called “Communicating Astronomy: Adventures Under the Dome.” It was a lot of fun and the students were a sharp group. It has been a while since I did any “formal” teaching in an academic setting. Sure, I’ve done seminars and workshops at meetings, and have taught a similar mini-workshop over at UMASS-Lowell a couple of times. It’s not the same when you plan four weeks of activities. However, I enjoyed it a lot. The students were quite inventive and wide-ranging in their interests. Their final projects were all very good and reflected today’s tools for content creation (like short animations, whiz-bang Power Points, etc.) as well as the more traditional live presentations done well.

I taught the class in Hopkins Observatory at Williams College, in the Milham Planetarium. We met three days a week, saw shows nearly every day using the systems in place there. One of the days we drove over for a visit to Sky-Skan’s dome in Nashua, NH so the students could see more show and meet other production professionals (like SS president Steve Savage, staffers Dave Miller and Jennie Zeiher, and of course, Mark Petersen, my production partner and president of Loch Ness Productions, who came up for the afternoon to talk about show production).

Class picture
Class picture

While astronomy was one central theme that ran through the class, so was the communicating of it. I tried to give the students some background on various ways that astronomy stories can come to light. We discussed press practices, newsgathering, stories in the media, and of course how to find stories in legitimate sources in real life and on the Web. A lot to teach in four weeks, but it was all do-able. And this group of bright, inventive folks you see above did it.

Now I’m back home, still working on the Griffith Observatory exhibits, and a couple of other projects for various folks. Next up for big projects? Well, there is a new planetarium show project and who knows what else will walk in the door for a writer/editor/communicator in astronomy and space science?