Lots of Shows, or Lots of Show....

Well then THIS seems to be whats 'sticking' to the wall for you then! Let maybe the Christmas show be your anchor from which you grow - find out who these people are - give them a gift, lavish them with fun, talk to them and find out what would bring them back - ask them what they would do with the pointer as it were, what are they interested in. Maybe this IS your niche - if it plays in January, why wouldnt it play in February? etc - 

Seems to me we've been throwing all sorts of things against the wall to see what sticks

I said these words to a friend running his own planetarium, and finding his Christmas show was by the far the best attended.  


Should we give alot of SHOWS, or alot of SHOW - one big one that plays continuously

This seems to be the final question on Home Planetariums.   What keeps them going?  Do people come to see the spectacle regardless of what is actually playing, or do they come back again and again to see different content?   I favor the one super show approach, whereas he seemed after this exchange to continue programming different things each month.   There is no right approach of course, and maybe most of it is what satisfies the planetarium builder and owner the most. 

My problem with the multi show approach is, there isn't time for word of mouth to build for the February show before its gone and on to the March show.  And the one that really 'wows' them only comes around once a year, way too long a period for any momentum at all to build.   I favor the approach of having one incredible show that is always there, allowing momentum to build and repeat viewers.  It must be informative yes, but interactive, fun, and include takeaways.  The visitors must be pleased and kept track of to invite them back.  Counting on them to post to a facebook page on their own isn't enough.  Its been tried.  You get one chance to wow them.  You'd better wow them! 

I favor charging a LITTLE.  Like the old drivein theaters maybe, a buck a carload.  The Father of Home Planetariums, Richard Emmons, said he charged 'to lend dignity to the service'.   Perceived value has to be there, and if its totally free its easy to be totally ignored. 

These are my final thoughts on actually running a planetarium sustained mainly by word of mouth - advertising is such a drag!    

Ray Worthy and Letting People See What They Want to See (Planetaria Obscura Dec 16)

Ray Worthy Indeed Was 

Worthy.  Here’s Mr. Ray from HPA Issue 4 

The pictures in the sky are simply what you want them to be. You can get as many interpretations as there are observers. In one show with some six year old children, I showed a constellation and asked the children what they saw.  Immediately one little girl said, it’s a shopping trolley!  I gave her the pointer and sure enough she showed why it WAS a shopping trolley. One of her friends then took the pointer and explained that what she saw was a dolly’s push chair. I think you might call it a stroller.   So with this introduction, I explained to the class that in times past, when the main industry in England was farming, what people saw was either a plough or a horse drawn wagon. The plough, of course was the type pulled by one horse or bullock. You can see the handles, which were guided by the ploughman, and the main body enclosed by the four main stars is the actual ploughshare, which is half under the ground.  For the wagon, the main four stars become the body of the wagon, or ‘wain’, and you have to imagine the large pair of wheels. The arm of stars which were the plough guiding handles, now become the shafts for the horse or pony. It became known as ‘Charles Wain’. Later, I explained that in North America their books call the group of stars the Big Dipper, a drinking vessel hanging beside the water barrel that the cowboys would use when they came home to the the ranch house after a dry day’s riding. In the southern States it is sometimes called the drinking gourd, and escaping slaves fleeing to the north would be told to ‘follow the drinking gourd’. In order to travel to the free states in the north.  In other words, the pattern is whatever you want it to be. The only restriction is that there has to be some consensus in the naming so that others can know what part of the sky you are talking about.

We danced about the maypole and in the hazel copse, till Charles Wain came out above the tall white chimney tops (Tennyson)

Those bright starres, which English shepherds, Charles his Waine, do name (Taylor)

 Even though 2016 ends in some doldrums, and with Ray Worthy gone, let us find comfort in his words and perhaps look at home planetariums from a different angle.  From the outside, looking in rather than our traditional roles of ‘well I built all this and now what’  Or ‘should I build this, because then what‘.  Or ‘should I keep this, because why‘.. Maybe in Ray’s piece there is an answer.  What did he do - he handed the pointer to someone else and let them see what they wanted to see, let them define a star group as they saw it.  Then he made the point that what they had just done was no more than what humanity had done down through the ages - see what THEY saw in it.  Not what anyone wanted them to see.  How many people just aren’t going to ever see a bear-driver, or herdsman, but they are going to see a kite.  How many people hear the word planetarium and have no real image anymore of what that means.  Maybe instead of us defining it for them, we let them define it for themselves.   Maybe instead of pointing out things, we let them point out their own things. People have unlimited choice these days .. Why don’t we give them some in a star theater.  What does THAT mean?  Its going to take some reflection, but what if more of a DIY (do it yo-self) approach could be contemplated.  I’ve toyed with projects, kits, make-it things.  What if the whole show were that way?  What if the guest lecturer was the kid in the 2nd row.  What if the guests were asked, what do you want to learn - here’s some possibilities.  Are we now not like a restaurant where you come in, sit down, and they decide what burger you’re going to eat? They don’t do that - they hand you a menu.  Just some thoughts to explore as 2017 dawns, as new years have a way of doing.

We have the luxury of not having to make money, isn’t this why most small businesses fail? They never find their niche enough to be self-sustaining. We don’t HAVE to do that, but its instructive if we want to achieve whatever nirvana means to us in this arcane pursuit.  Money may still come into it, what exactly is ‘perceived value’, but right now I’m trying to wrap my head around the next step.  Running out of time?  As Frodo said to Sam when he handed over the Red Book, there’s room for a little more.  We aren’t out of pages just yet.

Ghost Story! - a Planetarium Haunting

From Planetaria Obscura Nov 2016 Issue  (true story)

The Spirit of 16

I have a ghost in my planetarium!   But its not what you think - yet I am convinced of it..   it’s a cat.   I’ll explain.  Things began disappearing in the visitor area last summer.  Things I KNEW I had put down in a specific location.  But they weren’t gone - they were found in other places.  And always when I went to look for them, the moment my mind was somewhere else, I found myself staring at them.  I thought this was odd, so after one particularly stunning example - I placed a small light in the Cosmorama out there and an hour later found it over on the pool table .. I got an Ouija board.  But before I could try to use it, the planchett pointer disappeared.  This time for good, it was never seen again.  Someone didn’t want me using that board I thought.   Then I forgot about this for awhile.  

Until the day a few weeks later …..

 I Felt a Brush in the Dark!

This literally freaked me out.  I was in the planetarium, over by the star chamber where I do the Joe Starr show.  As I was sitting down on the floor, something brushed up against me - against my leg.  I felt it like electricity.  It shocked me - I literally fell onto the floor thinking what was THAT.   But it was low to the ground ..  Then I started putting two and two together.  Were these events related?  it’s the mark of an animal maybe to grab things and carry them somewhere else.  My cat does that all over the house.   And something brushed my leg.  But then my rational mind took over, explaining it away - it was a muscle spasm!  I’m just absent minded.  Until the day

 I Literally SAW It!!

In full daylight mind you.  I was walking from my sheds on the left side of the backyard towards the planetarium when my mind suddenly blanked out - I looked down and saw a cat - a grey striped cat ..just for a second, then it disappeared.   I knew then.   I went over and cleared the brush away from our pet cemetery.  There are 4 cats and 1 dog buried there.  Was this one of them?  I had been in that barn for over 30 years and never seen or felt anything like this.  So I bided my time ..  What else can you do? I hoped I wouldn’t see something that truly alarmed me.

I decided to wait for one more confirmation.  I didn’t have long to wait.  One night just last week …..

Comes A Second Appearance!
     
 This time there was no doubt.  Sitting in the planetarium under fairly low light conditions, I suddenly looked up and a black segmented blob ambled behind the screen - I didn’t see the stripes this time, but I saw a head and tail.  There’s a ghost cat running around out there.   I think its Nicholas, our very first cat here on the farm - a large striped tiger cat.  He always wanted to go out so bad, sometimes I think he died of a broken heart, since we wouldn’t let him out to prowl.  Now he prowls forever?  WHY he chose this time, and in this manner, to appear remains unknown.  There is certainly nothing sinister - actually he’s almost playful.  Still - its hard not to think about, sitting out there about 4 AM.  

In the dark.  Alone.  Or am I? 

Pick Up the Pieces - or - Rolling in the Deep

from Planetaria Obscura October 2016 issue

 Pick up the Pieces!

I already have ALL that.  I have it ALL.   Its just a matter of putting the puzzle together.  They can leave with memories of all that.  They can leave with cheap prizes and handouts.  They can leave with URLS of the videos of what I’m doing - they can pull them up during the show on their phones if they want to, who cares.   I loved the little kid shows I used to do because they were elbowing each other, they were asking for the pointer, they were over talking each other.  It was busy, it was hubris to be sure - but when they were gone, you felt like something had HAPPENED there.  Like after my barn parties of another era, I loved feeling how the room felt after they were gone.   We had some funn.   My spellchecker is getting tired of that misspelling.  Too bad!   Funn  funn  funn

 Now Set Sail

So I need to put all of this into one show - and its all just sitting around - there’s probably a kitchen sink I can throw in somewhere.   Rather than individual shows on different topics, I’m just going to shoot one shotgun shell into the air with all the bb’s I’ve got.  Its an approach.  Sort of like why we keep rereading favorite books, I’d go for repeat business to experience the same thing again. But mainly I’d hope they’d tell somebody else to check it out.  At least if I only get one shot at a person, I gave them everything I had to give them.  I gave it all away.   Not the only approach surely. But mine.
They CAN have it all.

Rolling in the Deep. 

Combo-Licious or Cheeseburgers Are Easy!

 From Planetaria Obscura October 2016 issue  

 Combo Licious
     
 Rod Serling had his combo - his triple threat - his sight sound and mind .. In the PZ…  a combo was synergy, it left you feeling like you’d had MORE than just a burger and fries. . You had it all, and that’s a powerful concept.  Adele sings the ultimate lament - we could have had it ALL ..   The ultimate demand has always been .. I want it all .. And I want it now!   What do you want on that? EVERYTHING.  My potato?  LOADED.  The works.  It’s a powerful powerful message. So I want to say to people - planetariums mean so much to me - and I want you to have it ALL (in the next 30 minutes).   I want to give them a buffet table of memories. If I charge (and I think I will), I want to give them perceived value.  Used to be you went to a game, you came back with not just the game, you had a scorecard, a pennant, peanuts, hot dogs, you had it ALL.  Never mind what that would cost today!  I went to the Smokies, I came back with a cedar box and postcards.  You come to my planetarium, you’re leaving with a bunch of things.  A combo.  Of sight sound and mind.  Great concept.  How to do it???

 Cheeseburgers are Easy

 I have the main course, the cheeseburger - the basic show, the basic sights, sounds, and mind expanding questions.  I’ve gotten that far. How to package and deliver them so that people come away thinking they had funn and got it all.  I think I need an introduction that Twilight Zones them - I need a multi faceted delivery that consists of live lecture, recorded features, and a live dramatization. Shakespeare knew it - go into a tragedy like A Winters Tale and find a bunch of vaudeville in the middle - you have to educate AND entertain.  I wanted to capture it all and give it all away - I wanted the thrill of ending a rock concert with bright white lights ..  I wanted classical quotes.   I wanted the ability to laugh, at some of the material, I wanted the ability to interrupt and laugh at myself on tape.   I wanted to send people home with cedar boxes and post cards and pennants and scorecards so they felt like they got value. They got entertained along with their education and inspiration.  They saw sights, they heard sounds, they expanded their minds a little.  That wouldn’t be too hard for a guy sitting in a shed he built. Would it? 

Set That Tone!

Fromt Planetaria Obscura October 2016 issue

 Set that Tone!

I had never thought for 2 seconds about how to OPEN a planetarium show, other than - HELLO.  Good afternoon!

But then I started thinking that an overall vibe was established from the get-go.  So in Halloween month, I turned to the master - Uncle Rod.  How did he start?   Well he had utterly iconic music, but then he described what was happening… you’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.   Those words were utterly hypnotic.  They drew you in so firmly you could literally not look away.

Hi I’m Gary, and this is my barn! Wasn’t going to have quite the same effect was it.  

I needed a grabber.

Nobody grabbed like this.

Ever.

What could I learn from it.

Hmm

What REALLY Drives 'word of mouth' for your Planetarium?

(from Planetaria Obscura September 2016)

First Unload Baggage Please
     
I’ve carried around baggage in my home planetarium career - time to unload it out of the boot (British for trunk).   What baggage, as it applies to what people will remember about visiting my planetarium?  What semi myths do I cling to?   Well, there’s ‘I’m now inspired to take up amateur astronomy’!   Probably not.  Gone I think are the days when an Edmund catalog arriving at the house set off a lifelong passion.  Then there’s  ‘I’m going out TONIGHT and see all these constellations!  No, the city of Gallatin isn’t turning off its zillion lights tonight for you.   Finally there’s ‘I learned SO MUCH about stellar evolution, I’m changing my future major! ’ Not so much, being like school probably isn’t going to resonate.   All these things of course are POSSIBLE - I had the little girl one time who wanted to direct NASA some day.  But clinging to these as my major take-aways isn’t going to get word of mouth going.  I think I need to consult the Beatles.  A little help from my friends.

What Can’t Money Buy?
             
Money can‘t buy me love?  True, but that’s another newsletter entirely.   What can’t money or equipment or lectures or information or any manner of delivery buy?  FUN is the one thing that money cant buy.  After I saw Episode IV in 77 it was so much fun I HAD TO TELL EVERYONE.   After I took a crazy picture that was so much fun to  look at and produce, I HAD TO PUT IT ON FACEBOOK.    …..  When anything happens that causes fun, be it a book, a movie, a video, a show, an experience, a game -   I submit that it’s the fun you had in experiencing it that you want to share.  You want others to see what you saw.  Why else do we take pictures? To preserve something?  Mainly, we want others to see what we see.  Experience what we experience.  Fun is the thing we love the best.  And fun is an equal opportunity employer.  It will work with any package of ingredients.  It’s the experience that will be retold over and over.

And she’ll have fun fun fun till her daddy takes the t-bird away.  Indeed.

Nebraska (How do you know when you're done?)

 Nebraska?    from Planetaria Obscura - August 2016 Issue

Having three different doors, offices, projectors, configurations, dome surfaces, chair groups, music systems, roof coverings.  I thought of it romantically but practically - why did people stop in Nebraska when they could’ve continued on to Colorado during the great western expansion?  Why did they go THAT far when Ohio was good enough.  I think maybe we go as far as we can go with something until we convince ourselves this is far enough.  Or we drop in exhaustion. This land will make a THE farm.  Others keep going till they run out of land, some never left where they were born.  Some change things over time and never settle. I just changed them till I couldn’t change them any more. And one day in Nebraska, I thought - this is far enough.  It feels right.  People love Nebraska. Some of them must.  I now love my physical planetarium.  I’m home here in Omaha.  Or is this Lincoln?  WHERE’S THE WALMART??  Oh ok.   I felt lost there for a minute….   Home is where the stars are. 

Lets Get Physical

 Lets Get Physical        From Planetaria Obscura - August 2016 Issue

Physical, I want to get physical - lemme here your building talk.  Your building talk.   I’m halfway there!  I still don’t love what I DO in the building, the shows or lack thereof, but I’ve finally built my stage. Why is that important?  Well for one, I may have to take it on the road.  If we do sell our farm in 10 years due to creeping senility, I can reconstruct this somewhere else.  I don’t want another one in some garage some where. I want THIS ONE in some garage somewhere.  It took me many many years to get this one.  I think I could dismantle most of it and move it.   Sort of like when people retire and downsize.  My parents left it all behind and bought totally new furniture.  My wife’s parents brought the same furniture to their new retirement home and set up sort of the same rooms in a new house.  I actually prefer that approach.   I’ve become somewhat obsessed with PORTABLE, after spending 30 years here thinking, feet first, only way I’m coming out of here is feet first.  Actually, everywhere you go is feet first I finally decided (unless you have a really big nose), and those feet were made for walking!  And that might be just what they’ll do.  Maybe not.   Gotta live one day at a time. But planning for 65, or 70, or 80 years of age, you begin to envision that time when the next owner says, well after we knock all that down, we’ll plant tomatoes back here.  Like I should have done maybe. But by then, if I left, and its not decided but it might happen, by then I would have set it all up in some other garage or barn.  Because it was permanent but portable.  Don’t build anything you cant put wheels on.  Or grow tomatoes in.

The Darkened Room

From Planetaria Obscura July 2016

 The Darkened Room
     

What is it about a darkened room?  Lately I go out and sit in my little homemade star theater, sit in an easy chair, turn down the lights, and.. And …. I don’t turn on the stars.  Now perhaps this is more a function of an imperfect star theater - I don’t have cave like total darkness.  I don’t have perfectly curved surfaces.  Like being outside at night, there are plenty of undulations and faint glows - but these are provided even in a perfect theater by instruments,  pilot lights, and any faint illumination we choose to introduce.  The effect is the same - even without stars, the room gets bigger. And bigger. Until you’d swear you are sitting in an open expanse. Even standing up destroys this effect - you have to sit down and imagine a little - your senses begin to trick you.  The darkened room becomes the darkened universe.  Maybe this is behind why as kids we sometimes were afraid of the dark.  That closed in sense of security disappeared.  But now to me, its soothing.

Sort of like, my spirit can never be contained.  

The Land of Make Believe

From Planetaria Obscura - July 2016

The Land of Make Believe

Make Believe - the action of pretending or imagining, typically that things are better than they really are. Like "she's living in a world of make-believe"  

BETTER than they really are, that hadn’t occurred to me.  I didn’t quite buy that, but it was thought provoking.   Would my planetarium have an undercurrent of ‘well the real sky today sucks, so I’ve got the REAL way it should look - used to look’   That might be an easy trap to fall into, as my goal of course was to impart WONDER first and teach a little second.   Well not exactly a trap, if my goal was to educate about light pollution.  Its not so easy then, constructing and operating a land of make believe maybe.  Besides, the whole name is a bit misleading. We can’t really MAKE anyone believe anything can we.  We can try to convince them, show them what we believe.

The rest is up to them.  

Plot vs Theme in the Amusement Park

From the newsletter Planetaria Obscura - June, 2016

What’s the appeal of a home made star projector?  HPA Issue 12 had this to say:

Starlab?  I don’t want one!  I want one of a kind instruments, hand labored, eccentric, quirky, and beautiful in their own unique personalities. I like instruments that grow month by month, instruments that require hand adjustment, and ones that have permanent homes rather than living out of a suitcase.  Instruments with names, not numbers  This is not to knock commercial big boys however, when recently I visited Chris McCall’s Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, I was impressed by the way her Spitz did a kind of ballet, whirling and even back flipping at shows end gracefully.  I was probably the only one watching the stars AND their source instead of the program being presented.

So for shows like Chris’s and the ones I’ve done, the plot (the story) here was certainly the astronomical information given.  But to me, the theme (the underlining meaning) was that the heavens are a kind of ballet.  And the projector is the dancer.  I watch both.

I liked the old amusement parks, before ’theme’ parks came into being, so really I think of my planetarium as both.  Many themes live out there, as the plots play out.  But amusements?  I’m lucky to be old enough to remember Riverview in Chicago, and Chain of Rocks on the bluffs above St Louis.  How would my planetarium measure up as a center of amusement?   I can speak of the galaxy as one big steam carousel, in a carnival of night.  See how it whirls!   Are we not on some gilded horse going round and round
forever amid the flashing lights and calliope music?  Gravity provides our roller coaster rides, invisible fingers accelerating us on a fantastic track through eternity.  Quantum physics now lures us into a bizarre funhouse of curved mirrors, stretching and flattening out our realities.  A planetarium and its atmospheric hurly burly (I always wanted to say that) puts you right on the midway.

Step right up.  

Thee Ate Er

From Planetaria Obscura May 2016

             Thee Ate Er
     
So I’ve been calling this round shed I built a theater.  This not to code, easily knocked down, tin roofed little monstrosity a theater. Its got walls of the cheapest paneling, since that bends the best.  Its got a trailer skirting roof, since it could be overlapped.  Its got rafters that are teepee’ed together, a gravity defying trick I finally trusted only a year ago when I nervously took the last supporting 2x4 out and it didn’t collapse.  Its got black vinyl plastic, the stuff I love to hate and hate but love.  The dome part is sprayed white, but continually requires touch up - I remember getting sick the day I did it - da fumes! Da fumes! Sorry.   The floor is uneven, sloped, and covered with ancient rugs. But it’s a theater because I say it’s a theater, despite its construction shortcomings.  What if I compared real theaters with mine?  Dare I??

Up at the movie house we still occasionally go to, you have to sit through 25 minutes of ads and previews.  In mine, you have to sit through 25 minutes of dark adaption.  When I recently saw a Midsummer Nights Dream at a big college, there were kings and queens and heroes and all manner of unlikely creatures. I have that.  The movie place had unlimited butter popcorn.  Mine has unlimited banter popping from me. The play had rich costumes.  Mine has me in somewhat drabber dress, but who cares in the dark.  The real theaters used to have ushers with flashlights.  AHA!  I still employ one of those.  Although he’s been asking for a raise lately, and goes through a lot of batteries…

Have You Seen the Saucers?

From Planetaria Obscura May 2016

  Have You Seen the Saucers?

When I inherited  from my late father in law an additional turntable and old vinyl collection, it went right in the planetarium. Never completely comfortable with invisible digital stuff, now I could buy 99 cent vinyl at Goodwill and sit back in a lazy-gare and contemplate the actual printed French lyrics to Dominique by the Singing Nun.  Who wouldn’t? But how to work it in though - all these soulful old discs. How is a record like a galaxy I mused. There’s a black hole at the center!  I tried to get rolling.  It spins.  It has side A and side B - like …  matter and anti matter …  light and dark matter…   Gravity holds the needle in the groove - its like the march of time from the outer edge to the innermost track.  That’s all I could think of, but after an extensive google-based search of 10 seconds, there was this:…. The linear velocity of the needle in the groove is much slower near the end of the record than at the beginning.  This means the frequency response is audibly different on the inner tracks… its always a good idea to end each side with a quiet song.  That sounds like red shifted light - the further out, the faster…  the old stars at the center quiet down while the young ones out further rage…. ..

But did Kiss end LP’s quietly? 

As Some Dreams Do (The Globe Theater)

From Planetaria Obscura April 2016

As Some Dreams Do
     
I’ve always been fascinated by Shakespeare’s Globe theater, being circular like a planetarium, but OPEN AIR in the center - feeding into my fantasy of a planetarium that could somehow double as a real star viewing area with a removable roof or something. This notion was kind of shot down when I researched it a bit -

‘Two posts upheld a cover over the stage that protected the players and their expensive costumes from rain. The audience standing in the yard had no cover, though when it rained they could pay more and take shelter in the lowest gallery.  The plays were staged in the AFTERNOONS, using the light of day, and the audience surrounded the stage on all sides. No scenery was used, except for occasional emblematic devices such as a throne or a bed. It was almost impossible not to see the other half of the audience standing behind the players. Consequently, much of the staging was metatheatrical, conceding the illusory nature of the game of playing and making little pretense of stage realism'

In the afternoon?  There went my romantic vision of original Shakespeare, under the stars.  This dream will have to remain a dream for now.

As some dreams do.  

Planetariums and .. the Beatles?

From Planetaria Obscura March 2016

I fancy myself as a bit of a Beatles scholar.

Slightly too young to be buying records until the very end of the Beatles reign, I’ve spent the years since trying to catch up, reading countless books about them and of course wearing out the LPs.  How is my planetarium like the Beatles?  Well, I’ve read that the studio engineers sat around waiting endlessly while the Beatles ‘got their ideas together’.  Surely my aged barn feels the same way as it watches me spend yet another year endlessly rearranging things till it just seems ’right’.

The Beatles wrote songs in a wide variety of styles, and I can’t seem to settle on any given configuration, show, or even star ball in my planetarium. The Beatles and I both have screamed HELP!

But there are ways that we differ as well.

I’m not a day tripper.

I never let it be.

And rest assured that no matter how dark it gets in there, I decidedly do NOT want to hold your hand.   

I'll Sit in the Door!

From Planetaria Obscura March 2016

Nobody deals with round rooms.

Well some people perhaps have turrets on their houses - Jefferson had an Octagonal Room at Monticello.  But I submit a planetarium owner (all 5 of us) have to deal with no corners in ways nobody else does. This is my preferred explanation for why my floor configuration keeps changing.  Other explanations include no attention span, easily bored etc, so I prefer  the round room difficulty theory.  I have literally returned to my original West looking configuration recently, after going from West to North (these are the real directions), North to East, East to South.  The land slopes West to East, so spectators, if any, have alternatively been looking a bit up, a bit down, or a bit sideways over the course of the past 10 years.  Endless chair configurations have ensued, along with entrances and uses for the addition I put on years ago.  My switch last year to rockers (old ones from the house, I have 7) brought the seats out from the round walls so you can .. rock.

But where should I go?

 It’s a small 15 foot diameter ’room’.  As much as I’ve wanted the console off to the side larger rooms afford, I’m always blocking SOMETHING.  Same with sitting in the middle.  I finally hit on it this morning.  I’ve returned to viewing to the West, with a semi-circular focal point stretch of sky down to the floor (totally circular seating doesn’t work with small round rooms, someone always has stars over their shoulder).  It finally dawned on me there was but one unused place in the room - the doorway.  And I had to secure the door anyway after people were in.  I’ll just put my stool IN THE DOORWAY and not block anything!   A small table to one side for accessories.

But I don’t think Thomas Jefferson did it this way.

A Tribute to Home Planetarium Pioneers

I had samples of only 4 home planetarian lectures - Richard Emmons in the 1950's, Stephen Smith in the 1970's, and Ron Walker (and myself) in the 2016 timeframe.  I put them together in a lighthearted sampler to commemorate these pioneers!

Home Planetarium Pioneers

Do Stars Have Personalities?

When you own your own stars, maybe even more than in real life they can become your friends.  After all, who lets them shine even in the daytime - they don’t even need to provide their own hydrogen, although most real ones seem to have a rather full tank for the next billion or so years.  But stars can develop personalities in our little skies mirroring the bigger ones in the bigger skies.  There’s a term in philosophy called ‘anthropomorphizing’, give or take a few syllables, which ascribes human traits to inanimate objects.  If you don’t believe this, see my pet rock.  Anyway,  who would these stars be if they could?  Who are they in your little world - its ok, we’ll understand.  Probably. Some stars are stuck in side-kick mode.  Procyon will forever be Robin to the Sirius Batman thing going on up there.  But Sirius has his own hangups - is he JUST NOT BRIGHT ENOUGH??  Do you miss that multi-color twinkle?  You ain’t alone.  But back to Procyon… its bad enough for Sirius to be ‘the dog star’, but at least its an identity.  Procyon is either ‘before the dog’, or ‘the little dog’.  That’s worse. Innit.  

Does Pollux ever wonder why it isn’t Pollux and Castor?  I always wonder why duos are named as they are - but I guess Cher and Sonny - Costello and Abbott - they just don’t roll off the tongue quite the same way. Still twins should be considered equal.  Gemini should end with two I’s - but its not me and you - its I and I.  Would Regulus seem so dignified if instead of Leo he headed up the Giraffe?  Is Aldebaran sick of being overshadowed by the Crab Nebula, and those sisters?  Are the sisters sick of the question, well, are there 6 or 7 of you??  Is one of you FADING?? That must be tiresome.  I always look at Deneb and think - you didn’t want to be on the tail of a bird did you, so you just had to come up with that Cross thing to save face.  We’ll do more of these in the future.  They probably want us to.  But I’ll ask them.