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.

Is it Better to be Lost or Found?

I go back and forth on how much of the night sky I should learn.  The conventional (default even) idea seems to be that the more you know, the more you enjoy!   Constellation guides have been published in great profusion for so long, a local used bookstore I frequent has at least 30 at any one time.  There are 88 constellations.  I should know them all.  And even if I can't see them all in my real sky, what excuse do I have in my planetarium sky?  I can go south without leaving the farm.  I can see Antila the Hun, and mean the Pump.  WHY don't I know them all.   I could dazzle visitors with my knowledge.  I've even written tributes to overlooked constellations like Leo Minor.   Actually come to think of it, all but about 20 constellations might fall in that overlooked category, and half of those are heard of more for astrology than astronomy.

But I haven't done that.   I fight it.    I once attended a 'constellation shootout' at a regional planetarium conference under a big dome.  The winners knew them all.   I should be a winner.   But I'm not.

So I tell myself, most people who enjoy hobbies don't know everything about them.   Most people who visit Yellowstone don't see every geyser.  You see want you want to see, or what you have the energy to see .. or... what fullfills whatever it is that drove you to look in the first place.   And whatever drives me to look at the stars is apparently NOT a deep desire to know them all!   Thinking about it, you can't know a tiny fraction of them anyway.  Inspirational songs say that the creator knows every star by name - maybe so we don't have to.   Anyway, constellations are arbitrary.   They are past records of other people in other times who saw things.   Nobody named them all, so perhaps nobody needs to KNOW them all.

There's a funny line in one of the Indiana Jones movies - he got lost in his own museum.    They use it as a joke, or an indication of incompetence, but I think maybe its just an equally valid approach to life.  Get lost in your own sky.   A favorite old song goes, lets lose ourselves, go completely astray, and find ourselves again.  I do that sometimes in my little woods out back - getting lost just for a moment has benefits - it resets our bearings, shows us how little control we really  have.  And theres a rush of familiarity when we find ourselves again which is pleasant.  Reassuring.   Makes us appreciate maybe what we stop seeing after awhile if we never get off the beaten path (which we beat, along with countless others).

So sometimes I think, its better not to know all the constellations.  To get lost and not concentrate on groupings of trees.  That way you can take it all in at once.  Its more like a living, breathing organism then maybe.  Maybe its an excuse, and I'm just lazy.   But maybe that ain't all bad. 

THESE ARE THE STARS - SHOW

I've finally created a literary nod to the stars that I will use in my shows at Sumner Skies Planetarium!  Its a throwback to old golden age astronomy books that always began with poetry - quotes - emotions as well as facts and science.   Once I got going, These are the Stars basically wrote itself, and to keep a live feel I basically went with the first take.  The video was similarly a first take, going down the script written in about an hour with two old inspirational texts and my memories.  I threw in a few early planetarium attempts, the very first stages of the current 15 foot dome and earlier 9 foot dome from the 90s.  Also there is a nod to the father of home planetariums, Dick Emmons.    I made a few speaking mistakes in the narration, most hilariously 'Corvus the Crue', who will become the mascott for my 'institution' as soon as I can make one up.

Its that live 'this is happening now' feeling that the stars always give me.

THESE ARE THE STARS - SHOW

Heres a brief introduction in the star chamber.  Its always been my dream to add live music and poetry to enhance the creative passion of the stars.  They are not just static!

THESE ARE THE STARS - INTRODUCTION

To commemorate the final renovation - the BARN AND THIRTY YEARS theme fully realized (we bought this farm in 1985) I recorded a short tour of the facilities

Tour the 2015 Sumner Skies Planetarium!

1000 Hours of Thought

There were two titles to this unlikely work, the first went ‘is that a planetarium, or is your lamp on steroids?’ - a humorous nod to the ludicrousness of creating what is essentially an elaborate magic lantern that recreates .. Creation.    It was so serious you had to laugh, like John Lennon cracking up before 'Let it Be' cranked up on the last Beatles record.  The other title was ‘1000 hours of thought’, which sort of belied anything funny.  Anything you had to think THAT many hours for was at risk of sinking under its own weight much faster than the Titanic.  But that’s almost accurate, 1000 hours of thought for each hour DOING was how this went down.  

Dave Marsh, the old boomer rock critic had the answer on page 343 of 'The Heart of Rock and Soul, the 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made', when he described for years hearing the first line of 'Surfin USA', the Beach Boy classic, as ‘if everybody had a notion’, instead of the true lyric, ‘if everybody had an ocean’ .  'If everybody had an ocean' merely sets the scene for surf music - I could well say, if everybody had a planetarium …  and describe the joys and benefits.  But if everybody had a NOTION was far different - that implies that surfing or planetariums (or whatever crazy pursuit you wish to insert here) was something far greater.  Something to ponder. Something that drives you, though you may not know exactly what it is.  Aren't we driven to do the best things in life?

It made surfing, or building planetariums, or (insert here your crazy dream) an act of will and philosophy.  Those weren’t just kids swimming around on surfboards - I wasn’t just some lunatic sitting in a barn projecting fake stars on the ceiling … we were men walking on water, pursuing some nobler purpose only we could see but one that we desperately wanted to share.  Achieving something far more weighty for our own souls.  Living a purpose and driving down a road with or without a clear view of the destination.  Me?  I just like stars, OK?  That became my motto but anything that required this much passion was surely far more.  It might seem like an ocean, but you had to have a pretty powerful NOTION to cross that ocean.   Surf music - home planetariums .. the will to beat on, boats against the current.  Something that drives you.  A way to live. This must surely be a part of the furniture of my life.  Not really a hobby at all.

So...  that lamp down on the far end table.  Has it gotten fatter????