This page is my publications/productions page. I’ve included a good selection (but not all) of the hundreds of projects I’ve written.

Selected Publications

BOOKS

Astronomy 101,July 2013, Adams Media, Avon, MA

Visions of the Cosmos,  with J.C. Brandt, January 2004, Cambridge University Press

Astronomy and Your Community, level 9, 2002, part of the EarthComm series, American Geological Institute, Fairfax, VA

Hubble Vision, 2nd Edition. 1998, Cambridge University Press (co-authored with John C. Brandt) (translations: Chinese, Korean, Arabic)

The New Solar System,  4th Edition, 1998. J. Kelly Beatty, Carolyn Collins Petersen, Andrew Chaikin. Co-published by Sky Publishing Corporation and Cambridge University Press.

The Scientific Impact Of The Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS), co-edited with J.C. Brandt and T. Ake, 1998, Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Proceedings Series, Vol. 143

Jupiter!, published in 1990, by Facts on File and BLA Publishers

BOOKS and MAGAZINES EDITED FOR SKY PUBLISHING CORPORATION

Deep-Sky Wonders, by Walter Scott Houston, with commentaries by Stephen J. O’Meara, 1998, Sky Publishing Corporation.

Skywatch Magazine, Editor, 1999-2001, Sky Publishing Corporation.

Video Astronomy (1st edition), by Steve Massey, Thomas A. Dobbins, and Eric J. Douglass, 2000, Sky Publishing Corporation.

EXHIBITS

“California’s Altered State”, for the California Academy of Sciences, installed 2008-2010

Griffith Observatory Astronomy exhibits, 178 panels currently installed. Written in 2005-2006.

JPL’s History of Exploration, CalTech NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 28 panels currently installed in the von Kármán Visitor Center. Written in 2010.

Astronomy and Space Exploration exhibition, Shanghai Astronomical Museum, 2018-2020.

SELECTED POPULAR ARTICLES

“Spotlight on Starbirth in Cassiopeia,” Sky & Telescope Magazine, December 2004

“Haystack Observatory celebrates 40th anniversary,” MIT Tech Talk, October 27, 2004 (co-authored with Madeleine Needles)

“‘Perfect Storms’ upset Earth’s atmosphere,” MIT Tech Talk, December 3, 2003

“Noctilucent Clouds from Rocket Exhaust,” Sky & Telescope Magazine, September 2003

“LOFAR: A Deep Look Through a Neglected Window,” Sky & Telescope Magazine, July 2003

“Nature’s Late-Night Light Shows,” Stardate Magazine, September/October 2002

“Showers of Light,” Stardate Magazine, November/December 2001

“The Universe Through Gravity’s Lens,” Sky & Telescope Magazine, September 2001.

“Collisions, Cannibals, Starbursts and Black Holes: What are Galaxies Coming To?,” Griffith Observer. (Honorable mention prize winner in the 1995 Griffith Observatory/Hughes Aircraft writing contest.)

“The X-Ray Sun,” a review article about the joint US-British- Japanese Yohkoh Solar X-ray mission for the September 1993 issue of Sky & Telescope.

“Magellan At Venus,” first-prize-winning article in the 1992 Hughes Aircraft/Griffith Observatory science writing contest, was published in the October 1992 issue of The Griffith Observer.

“The Satellites of Uranus and Neptune,” van Nostrand Reinhold Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1991.

“The Lightning Makers,” The Denver Post Empire Magazine. June 1986, “Lightning Makers” was voted one of the 100 best science stories of 1986, and republished by Social Issues Research Corp. as part of their Earth Science Series of library reference materials.

SOFTWARE PROJECTS

“Seeker”, wrote and narrated scripts for this Software Bisque software package.

“StarMap Media” wrote 32 original scripts in 2012-2013, for use in the StarMap 2 iPhone app.  Starmap.fr

Wrote original software manual for SkySkan, Inc’s  DigitalSky package, 2005. 

Podcasts/Vodcasts/Web-based Productions

365 Days of Astronomy, 2010 and 2011. Here’s a list of all my podcasts and links for replay! 

Astronomy  Behind the Headlines, for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2008-2010. A series of vodcast/podcast shows created by Carolyn Collins Petersen and disseminated by ASP. 

Selected non-planetarium Video Projects

SELECTED PLANETARIUM/FULLDOME SHOWS

(in date order, more info about these shows can be found at Loch Ness Productions.)

 “Light Years From Andromeda” (1980, revised 1996)

“Saturn: Before Voyager and After) (1981)

“More Than Meets the Eye” (1986)

“Voyager 2 at Uranus” (1986)

“The Mars Show”(1988)

“Voyager 2 at Neptune” (1989)

“The Voyager Encounters” (1989)

“Larry Cat In Space” (1990) Note: Larry Cat has been translated into Spanish and Swedish)

“The Cowboy Astronomer” (1992)

“Hubble: Report from Orbit” (1991)

“Magellan: Report from Venus”(1992)

“Hubble Vision” (1994)

“Oceans in Space” (1997)

“MarsQuest” (2000)

“Hubble Vision 2” (2004)

“Seasonal Stargazing” (2007)

“Exoplanets”, 2020

Collaborations and Co-productions

“Astronomy: 3000 Years of Stargazing”, (2011) with Albedo Fulldome Productions

“Chronicle of a Journey to Earth”, (2011) with Albedo Fulldome Productions

“Explore”, 2017, Creative Planet Productions

“Into the Deep” (2012) with Ogrefish FilmProduktions

“Lars the Little Polar Bear” (2010) Mediendome Kiel

“Losing the Dark”(2013) with the International Dark-Sky Association

“The Birth of the Solar System” (2010), Albedo Fulldome Productions

CUSTOM PRESENTATIONS

“The History of NASA” (1983) and “The History of the Mueller Planetarium” (1983) for the Ralph Mueller Planetarium, Lincoln, Nebraska

“Worlds of Fire and Ice” (1985) for Chicago's Adler Planetarium

“Gateway to Infinity” (1985) and “Lightwaves” (1986) for the St. Louis Science Center (St. Louis, Missouri)

“Language of Vision” (1987) for the Astronaut Memorial Hall Planetarium, Brevard Community College, Cocoa, Florida

“Outbound: The Planet File” (1988) for the University of Colorado’s Fiske Planetarium

“The Aztec Skywatchers” (1992) co-written with Dan Neafus of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s Gates Planetarium

“More Than Meets The Eye — 1993 Version” re-written in cooperation (and under a grant from) Spitz Space Systems, Inc., Chadds Ford, PA, 1993

“SkyQuest” (1996) commissioned by the Einstein Planetarium at the National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C.

“Oceans in Space” (1997) commissioned by the Seymour Planetarium, Springfield Science Museum, Springfield, Mass.

“The Molecularium” (2002) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute polymers group, Troy, NY.

“Universe” (2003) Evans & Sutherland Corporation Digital Theater Division, Salt Lake City, Utah.

“The Edge of Darkness (2015), Evans & Sutherland Corporation Digital Theater Division, Salt Lake City, Utah

SELECTED SCIENCE RESEARCH PAPERS

1. C.C. Petersen and J.C. Brandt, “The IHW Large-Scale Phenomena Network and Observations of Comets to Support the ULYSSES Mission,” Completing The Inventory Of The Solar System, Eds. T.W. Rettig and J.M. Hahn, Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, Volume 107, 1996, pp. 299-308.

2. J.C. Brandt, Y. Yi, C.C. Petersen and M. Snow, “Comet de Vico (122P) and latitude variations of plasma phenomena,” Planetary And Space Science, Volume 45, 1997, pp. 813-819.

3. J.C. Brandt, C.C. Petersen, M. Snow, Y. Yi and the Ulysses Comet Watch, “Cometary plasma tails as probes of latitudinal structure in the solar wind,” Annales Geophysicae, Volume 16, Supplement III, page C859.

4. M. Snow, J.C. Brandt, Y. Yi, C.C. Petersen and H. Mikuz, “Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) and the latitudinal structure of the solar wind,” in preparation for Planetary And Space Science.

5. J.C. Brandt, M. Snow, Y. Yi, S. Larson, H. Mikuz, C.C. Petersen and W. Liller, “Large-Scale structures in comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1): Latitudinal variations and monster disconnection event,” in preparation for Icarus.

MISCELLANEOUS RESEARCH and INVITED ARTICLES

C.C. Petersen, M.C. Petersen. “Adventures in the Dome Trade”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, No. 5, 2004. (available <a href=”http://www.lochnessproductions.com/reference/aas05/dome_trade_aas05.html” target=”_blank”>here</a> as a PDF download.

C.C. Petersen, M.C. Petersen. “The role of the planetarium”, Information Handling in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science Library series, Kluwer Academic Publishing, October 2000

C.C. Petersen, “The Birth and Evolution of the Planetarium,” Information Handling in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science Library series, Kluwer Academic Publishing, May 2003.

C.C. Petersen, “Links Between Planetariums, Educators, and Scientists,” The Planetarium Primer, Rocky Mountain Planetarium Association, 1998