What DO They Do?

I want to put my planetarium hat on here and talk about star talks. You may, if you go to the planetarium regularly (or even if you went to one in the past) have heard a star talk. In the trade, we call them the “green arrow shows” because the presenters used to (and some still do) chase stars around the sky with a green-arrow flashlight while pointing out the stars and constellations. Nowadays, we also use red pointers, or sometimes a mouse arrow if we’re using a digital system. Star talks can be done live (with a living, breathing person doing the talking “in the moment”) or as a pre-recorded presentation. Either way is effective.

These shows are a staple of star theater repertory. If you’re a good story teller and can bring the stars alive with some flair and elegance, chances are your audiences will come away having learned a little bit about the night sky and some memorable legends.

So Easy Even a Cave Person Can Do It

Now, people have been telling stories about the night sky ever since the first cave person stepped outside, looked up, and saw those little twinkling lights in the sky and tried to explain them to the rest of the clan. Over the millennia, all kinds of star tales and legends and lore have sprung up. And, many of those stories get told around the planetarium campfire each day, ranging from the ancient Greek myths, which may be based (in part or at least in spirit) on older Mesopotamian myths and legends. There are also Egyptian legends, Native American legends, many flavors of Asian star lore, as well as African tales, and stories of the Australian, South American, Inuit, and Pacific Islands peoples.

Instant Diversity

There’s a lot of interest in these tales for a number of reasons. First, they have many similarities while at the same time have different flavors that come from the different cultures where they were hatched. Second, they often tell stories with morals or important teaching and social goals (sort of like the way fairy tales teach important lessons cloaked in fantasy). Third, they allow a sort of “instant diversity” in the dome, allowing an astute storyteller to bring a lot of cultural material to help teach important science lessons about observation, patterns in the sky, and seasonal change in the skies.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

So, is there a down side to these talks? Not in talking about the stars. I encourage star talks, whether live or recorded. Knowing the night sky used to be a survival skill; now it’s part of what makes a human well-educated, whether he or she uses them to survive or simply know more about the universe.

I do think there is a danger of trying to do too much in a given star talk. Why do I say that? Because the night sky, a resource that is NOT available to all people equally, given the vicissitudes of light pollution, lousy weather, or lack of access, can be a bit overwhelming the first time someone looks at it. The first thing you think is “Wow, so many stars!” And your mind tries to make sense of what you’re seeing.

The key is simplification: simply tell people about what they’re actually seeing in the sky. Help them learn THAT before inundating them with half a dozen or a dozen cultural myths that aren’t well illustrated by what you’re actually seeing in the sky.

Look, the starry night is beautiful all on its own. There’s nothing like stepping outside and just confronting the stars, letting them shed their light onto your retinas. And, if you watch long enough, you start to see patterns in the stars. THOSE are the first things that a star talk should address. HOW to find one’s way among the stars and recognize Betelgeuse or Orion or the Big Dipper or Vega or the Andromeda Galaxy or any of the hundreds of other celestial delights that are up there.

After you get through the basics, and people are clear about how to find their way around, then yeah… let’s bring on the cultural street theater of the stars. Those are fun stories and I love reading them all. But they’re not the first thing I would choose to tell people in a star talk. I want them to know the stars first, without the cultural trappings, before moving on to the legendary aspects of humanity’s perceptions of the night sky.