The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hooray!  The election is over!

Okay, sorry, I couldn't help myself.  Whether your favored candidate won or lost, I think we can all agree it's been a long and rough election season.  I confess I am happy to be done with political ads, phone calls, and mail.  The holidays are just around the corner, and that is indeed my favorite time of year.

But before we get into the holiday season, we've got something fun coming up this Saturday!  Yes, it is once again time for our monthly Star Party and Laser Light Night here at the Virginia Living Museum.  While the flood damage has stopped us from using our lower level, the observatory is in great shape, and the planetarium is running just fine.  So we hope you'll be able to join us for some great sky watching and planetarium and laser shows this weekend!  Here's a quick preview of what we'll be looking at in the night sky (weather permitting, of course!).

Actually, I can pretty much sum it up in one word - Jupiter.  The largest planet of the solar system has once again returned to the evening skies and we cannot be more excited!  Mars (technically) remains low in the southwestern sky after sunset, but let's face it...it's nothing to write home about.  Even on the flattest western horizon you'll have difficulty finding our little neighbor planet.  It's not very bright, it's a dull orangey color, and at only half the size of Earth it's not particularly big, even in a telescope.  On the other hand, Jupiter is the second brightest of the planets (behind only Venus, now dominating the early morning skies), at ten times bigger than Earth it shines like a brilliant white star and shows amazing amounts of detail in a telescope, and rises in the early evening to then spend the rest of the night crossing the sky.  You can bet we'll have a telescope or two trained on Jupiter throughout the star party.  Join us to see how many Jovian moons we can spot, whether the Great Red Spot is facing towards us, and how many dark cloud bands can be seen on the face of the mighty planet. 

Jupiter, largest planet of the solar system.  Courtesy NASA

We often spend time hopping around various deep sky objects as well...galaxies, globular clusters, open star clusters and nebulae are frequent sights in our eyepieces.  There's also a chance you might see something impressive without even needing a telescope.  The North Taurid meteor shower will peak in the wee hours of Monday November 12...but it's not unthinkable that we might see a few early shooting stars on Saturday November 10.  The Taurids occasionally produce some brilliant fireballs, so if we do see a meteor, it's likely to be a doozy. 

A Taurid Fireball from 2005 photographed in Japan.  Courtesy NASA.  Photograph by Hiroyuki Iida

In the planetarium we'll be featuring the night sky and lots of great music.  At 7:30pm, I'll take you on tour of the evening sky with Virginia Skies.  Once you've seen the stars in the planetarium, step outside and check out the real thing!  Bring the kids for our 8:30pm laser show: iPop.  It's a great mix of some of today's hottest pop stars...including some of those super-popular teens from the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.  Hoping for some music more to an adult's taste?  No problem - stick around until 10pm for the psychedelic sounds of Laser Doors...and keep the trip rolling on with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at 11:30pm.  It all kicks off at sunset with FREE observing of the night sky...shows are $6 person, or any two for $10.  Members always get their tickets half price.

Okay, in the interests of full disclosure...there's another reason why I'm so excited for the star party this month...it's happening on my birthday, which I share with two wonderful people...a dear friend of mine (Happy Birthday, John David!) and Martin Luther, architect of the Reformation.  I suppose I could nail my doctoral thesis to my church door...nah, it wouldn't make much sense...plus the doors are made of glass anyway...

Until next time...
Carpe noctem!
Kelly

Happy Independence Day!

Hello everyone!  Just a quick post todqay, as it's a holiday, and I'm home with my family.

In a little while I'll be heading to the museum, as we'll be running our brand-new laser spectacular, Spirit of America, for the holiday tonight.  Come check it out!  But get your tickets soon - they are going fast!  Our 6pm show is already sold out!  Here are the details:

Spirit of America
6pm (SOLD OUT!), 7pm, 8pm & 9pm
TONIGHT! July 4th
$6 per person ($3 for museum members)

You can check out the playlist for the laser show online.  It's a great mix of patriotic and uniquely American music.  A fun show for adults and kids alike!  Plus no bugs, no parking problems, and it's indoors and air conditioned!

Also - if you purchase your tickets in advance, you get free laser 3D glasses when you come in!  So call the museum at (757) 595-1900 now and purchase your tickets by phone with a credit card.  We'll have them and your laser glasses waiting for you at the door.

An just in case you thought there was nothing particularly spacey about the Fourth of July holiday, allow me to offer these:

These are Hubble (left) and Spitzer (right) Space Telescope images of the North America nebula.  The visible light image (Hubble) shows how the nebula got its name.  Spitzer's image (in infrared) shows just how different things look when you see in different wavelengths of light.

This image is from the Hubble space telescope and looks remarkably like fireworks bursting in the night sky, doesn't it?  It's rather unromantic name is NGC 3603 and it's located in the constellation Carina.  I think the Fireworks Cluster would be a much better name, don't you?

So enjoy the fireworks tonight, either in the planetarium, or live, or on television, or even on the Hubble website.  Happy Fourth of July!

See you in two weeks...and until then...
Carpe noctem!
Kelly

Listen...Do you smell that?

But more importantly...did you see it?

Wow, the transit of Venus was amazing!  Weather locally here at the museum almost killed us...but just at the eleventh hour, the clouds parted a bit, and we got a decent view of the Sun.  We had 5 telescopes trained on it and got views of Venus in all five.  Plus we had the live stream from Mauna Kea in Hawai'i thanks to NASA.  It was an amazing evening, and I think our sold-out crowd really enjoyed themselves!

It's been a crazy day here at the Abbitt Planetarium, trying to recover from our big event, but I wanted to share a few photos with you all.  All of these shots were taken by one of our wonderful volunteers, Eric Hedden.

First, some of our telescopes:

In this image, you can see our 8" Celestron, our Coronado Personal Solar Telescope, and our Sunspotter Keplerian telescope.  We also had our 4.5" Orion refractor in use, plus another couple of our great volunteers brought their double-stacked solar scope for a truly excellent view.

Some images taken quickly through our 4.5" using nothing more than a cellphone:

These were taken with a white-light filter on the 4.5".  If you look closely, you can see not only wisps of clouds going by, but also one or two tiny sunspots in the images.

Finally, a shot through the PST:

This image is red because the PST uses a hydrogen-alpha filter, meaning that only red light is passed through the telescope.  Note that although the image is smaller, the dot of Venus is still quite clear.  It's also mirror reversed compared to the images from the 4.5".  This too was taken simply by holding up a cellphone camera to the eyepiece of the PST.

Aren't they amazing shots!  Just you guys wait until we get our new cameras from Orion up and working!

We might be ready to do some testing with them at the upcoming Star Party and Laser Light Night this Saturday!  Join us for solar viewing early (weather permitting) and evening viewing after sunset (probably starting around 9pm).  Observing is FREE!  Come and enjoy!

We'll also have a great selection of laser and planetarium shows for you.  For summer, we're adding an extra early family laser show so even the little ones can get in on the fun!  At 6:30pm enjoy Laser Beatles, at 7:30pm we'll run Saturn: The Ringworld, at 8:30pm you can rock to Laseropolis, at 10pm get psychedelic with Laser Doors and keep the mood going at 11:30pm with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.  Hope we'll see you then!

Until next time,
Carpe Noctem!
Kelly

Welcome to Mesozoic Park

Honestly, when you get right down to it, that's what eccentric billionaire John Hammond should have named his theme park.  Let's face it - not all dinosaurs lived in the Jurassic, but all dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic. 

So what's up with the dinosaur talk, you ask?  Well...summer is nearly upon us.  I can't believe it, but this weekend is the unofficial start of summer (Memorial Day Weekend) and the beginning of the long crazy summer schedule we run here at the Abbitt Planetarium until Labor Day rolls around.  This summer is certain to bring three things to the Virginia Living Museum...heat, humidity, and Dinosaurs!

Indeed, as the days lengthen, the dinosaurs are moving in to the changing exhibit gallery.  We'll once again be featuring the big moving and roaring critters that have always been so popular here at the museum.  An added bonus this year...non-dinosaurs!  You might not be aware of this, but all dinosaurs lived primarily on land.  Flying reptiles, like pteranodon, we not dinosaurs.  Neither were marine reptiles like elasmosaurus and mosasaurus.  You can see all three of these "dino-buddies" at this year's exhibit.

1916 Pteranodon painting by Harder.  Courtesy Wikimedia.

Want some extra dinosaur fun?  Consider joining us overnight on June 1 for Dinosaurs!  The Camp-in!  Yes indeed, you'll get to sleep overnight in the museum and learn more about dinosaurs than you ever thought possible.  It's going to be a whole lot of fun.  To get more information or to register, call Betty or Julia at (757) 595-9135.  There are only a few spaces left available - trust me, you don't want to miss this.

The planetarium will be getting in on the dino action as well, with our featured program "Dinosaur Prophecy."  We've got a brand-new opening segment focusing on the wonders of the summer night sky, and then we investigate four fossil sites to learn how dinosaurs lived and died, and what their demise might say about the fate of humanity.  It's a pretty amazing show...especially the parts where dinosaurs thunder across the dome thanks to some amazing animations!

For those not ready to walk with dinosaurs, we've got some other options in the planetarium as well.  With this year being the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we take you on a journey through the final days of the doomed vessel with "Night of the Titanic."  As always, "Virginia Skies" will take you on a live, guided tour of the evening skies for the day of your visit.  Rounding out the planetarium offerings through the end of June will be an all-new laser show especially for kids - "Here Come They Might Be Giants."  If your kids like the albums and videos produced by these awesome rockers, they'll be entranced by this laser show.  And if you've never experienced TMBGs kid-friendly music...don't miss this show.  You're in for a real treat.

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the successful launch of the Dragon capsule currently in orbit around the Earth by private space exploration company SpaceX.  Currently America's only means of getting into low-earth orbit, we're excited to see this program moving forward.  Watch the news on May 25th, as the Dragon capsule will be attempting to link up with the International Space Station on that day.  Best of luck for a smooth docking, guys!

SpaceX's Dragon capsule launches with their Falcon 9 rocket on May 22, 2012.  Courtesy NASA.

There's a lot happening here at the museum this summer, astronomically speaking and otherwise, and I'll be posting updates as needed to keep you informed about it all.  If you're not already signed up to receive updates from my blog, you might want to do that now, as I might be running a bit off my usual every other week schedule for a while.  But right now, I've got more work to do to get ready for the dinosaurs.  See you in two weeks!

Carpe noctem,
Kelly

Mars Attacks!

Well, actually, when you get right down to it...we're the ones attacking Mars.

Even as I write, the latest in a long series of robotic explorers is on its way to the Red Planet.  The Mars Science Laboratory, with its already-famous rover, Curiosity, launched toward Mars on November 26 of last year and is expected to touch down on the Martian soil in the wee morning hours of August 6, 2012.  If you're a devotee of Mars-exploring robots, you can sit up and watch the landing at the Virginia Air & Space Center, NASA Langley's Visitor Center.  Some folks from the Virginia Living Museum will be on hand too, discussing the ever-popular question of whether life ever got a foothold on Mars.

Mars is a tough planet to land on.

The road to Mars is a hard one, and landing on the surface is an even greater challenge.  Kind of like the superstitions surrounding the Scottish Play in the theater world, there's a long-held fear of Mars in the space exploration community.  It is definitely picky about what probes it chooses to welcome.  Half of all the missions ever sent to the Red Planet have ended in failure.

Russia's Phobos (meaning fear; also the name of one of Mars' two moons) 1 and 2 both suffered from the "Mars Curse."  Phobos 1 died of a software glitch - it lost its lock on the Sun, and since it was running on solar power, that was the end of that.  Phobos 2 seems to have suffered a similar fate - after a successful Mars orbit insertion and just prior to the scheduled release of two landing probes, contact was lost and never regained.  While the official explanation is an onboard computer failure...the subject of alien tampering was raised, and has never really been silenced.

The last image taken by the Phobos 2 spacecraft.  The dark object is often claimed to be a UFO responsible for the loss of the craft, but is most likely a distorted shadow of the craft itself on the surface of Mars.

The U.S. craft Mars Observer was also mysteriously lost.  Three days before a planned Mars orbit insertion, engineers lost contact with the spacecraft.  We'll never know exactly what happened, but the most likely cause seems to have been a ruptured fuel tank which sent the craft into a massive tailspin.

Russia tried again with Mars 96, with disastrous results.  The fourth stage of the rocket failed to ignite, and the whole kit and caboodle came crashing back down to Earth.  The bulk of the craft seems to have landed in Chile, though no pieces of it were ever recovered.  Russian telemetry on the rocket was severely limited, and no specific cause for the crash was ever identified.

The Japanese tried reaching Mars with the Nozomi (meaning Wish or Hope) spacecraft, but a malfunctioning valve resulted in a loss of fuel so great that the poor craft was left with insufficient fuel to reach Mars orbit.  Some science did come out of the mission though - Nozomi was able to make 2 successful fly-bys of Earth and one of Mars.

Probably the most embarrassing loss of a spacecraft goes to the United States and Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO).  MCO was lost when it traveled out of communications by passing behind Mars 49 seconds earlier than expected.  Contact with the spacecraft was never re-established.  Turns out that while the spacecraft software was written expecting flight data in metric units, engineers on the ground were uploading the data in English units.  The spacecraft ended up flying too close to Mars, and likely disintegrated in the Martian atmosphere.  Oops.

We didn't do much better with Mars Polar Lander (MPL).  Contact with the spacecraft was lost during the descent phase as MPL tried to land at the Martian South Pole.  We never heard from the spacecraft again.  No trace of the craft was ever found, but the official explanation for the loss states that vibrations during the descent phase may have tricked the lander into thinking it was on the ground, and it shut off its thrusters, causing it to plummet the last 130 feet or so to a very hard, fatal landing.

Even the British have had trouble with Mars, losing a lander, Beagle 2 (named for the HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin on his famous voyages).  No explanation or cause has ever been agreed upon - the little lander simply disappeared and never made contact after descending towards the surface of the Red Planet.

Clearly, entry, descent and landing (EDL) is a tough time for a Mars-bound spacecraft.  NASA engineers often call the EDL phase the "7 minutes of terror."  This Saturday, we here at the Virginia Living Museum are going to be celebrating Mars with our monthly star party and laser light night...and we've got a special guest planned - NASA!  Exhibits all about Mars and Earth will be available, and Jill Prince, NASA's Mars EDL expert, will be giving a special talk about the 7 minutes of terror.  If the weather holds, we'll be looking at Mars with our telescopes all evening (plus peeking at Venus and Saturn too, I'm sure!), and there will even be a bit of Mars-themed music in the planetarium with Laser Mania!

So come join us for some Mars Mania this Saturday!  Mars activities and exhibits open at 5:30pm, Jill Prince speaks in the planetarium at 6pm, and observing begins after sunset.  All are FREE!  In the planetarium: at 7:30pm enjoy Virginia Skies (with a focus on Mars); 8:30pm see Laser Mania featuring "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars" by Weird Al Yankovic; finish the night with a Laser Pink Floyd double feature: The Wall at 10pm and Dark Side of the Moon at 11:30pm.  All planetarium shows are $6, $10 for any two.  Members are always half price!

Don't forget to watch the news for information on the Mars Science Laboratory landing in August...and let's hope the Great Galactic Ghoul keeps his mitts off this one.

Carpe noctem!
Kelly

The Planets Will Go On

Hey everyone!

So I am already excited for this Saturday's Star Party and Laser Light Night here at the Virginia Living Museum.  It's going to be awesome, for two reasons.  Number one is that we'll be enjoying a Titanic theme!  This Saturday, April 14, 2012, is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  We'll be adding a Titanic flair to the night with a special showing of "Night of the Titanic" at 6:30pm.  Then at 7:30pm, we'll have our regularly scheduled "Virginia Skies" but we'll examine the stars of the Northern Atlantic as well and compare them to what we see here in Virginia.  Finally, at 8:30pm, "Laser Magic" features the theme from James Cameron's "Titanic" - Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On."  The punned out version of that title which heads up my post tells you the other reason I'm super excited about this Saturday.

Have you looked up in the early evening sky recently?  There are four - count 'em, FOUR! - planets visible to the unaided eye gracing the sky just after sunset.  It's incredible!  If the weather holds and things cooperate, you've got the chance to see all four of these planets through telescopes at the museum this weekend.  And it's free to boot!  How can you beat that?

Looking to the west in the early evening, you can still see Venus and Jupiter decorating the sky after sunset.  Venus is now substantially higher in the sky than Jupiter - the two have been moving apart steadily since their close encounter in March.  Jupiter is lower and fainter than Venus, so look carefully at the western horizon.  Venus will pop right out at you (it is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon, after all), but look down below Venus for the brilliant jewel of the solar system's largest planet, Jupiter.

Venus above and Jupiter below. Credit: Kevin Jung.

Turning your attention to the East will show you two more planets!  Mars is high in the south-southeast just after sunset, and is a distinctive orange color.  If you turn and compare colors between Mars and Venus, the decidedly orange tinge of Mars becomes very clear.  Mars' unique color comes from rust - the soil on Mars is rich in iron, and over time that iron has combined with oxygen to form rust.  The legendary windstorms of Mars have carried that rusty dust all over the planet, resulting the The Red Planet's characteristic hue.

Look low to the eastern horizon to see the fourth and final planet - golden-yellow Saturn.  If you can join us this Saturday, it will be well worth hanging around until Saturn climbs above our treetops so you can see it through a telescope.  It is quite possibly one of the most amazing things you will ever see!  Even at a distance of roughly a billion miles, the rings are quite distinctive, and with our larger scopes, you might even glimpse a few details in the cloud layers.

Saturn through a moderate-sized telescope.

We'll start setting up our telescopes around sunset (about 7:30-8pm these days) and will continue to observe until about 11:30pm or so.  Observing is free!  Planetarium programs begin at 6:30pm and are $6 for one, $10 for two (members are always half price!).  Make an evening of it and grab dinner in the Wild Side Cafe beginning at 6pm - they'll remain open until 10pm for food, snacks and drinks (both kid-friendly and adult).  It's going to be a "Titanic" night - so come join us!

See you then...
Carpe noctem!
Kelly

Closed for Remodeling

Hey, that film's already opened.  I saw that on a marquee just last week.

And if you remember that line...you go all the way back to the A-Team in the 1980s.  Good for you.

So for this installment, I wanted to explain why the Abbitt Planetarium closes down after Labor Day every year.  Let me start by explaining how things used to work.

Back before our renovation, when we were still a "traditional" planetarium (meaning no digital equipment), we closed for 5 different weeks each year.  During those weeks, we would be programming and installing a new planetarium show.  This meant dealing with hundreds of slides, synchronizing everything with SMPTE time code, and then testing and debugging the show for days on end.  We generally got very little sleep during those weeks...and we had to close every time we wanted to install a new show.  Plus, we could only do one at a time.  Ever.

These days, with our digital technology, programming a new show is much, much easier.  We no longer need to close for a full week when we want to get a new program in place.  And having multiple programs that can run during a day is simple!  So...why do we close for three weeks then?

The main reason is that it allows us some time to do all the maintenance tasks that we used to do back in the day when we were closed for show installation - clean the carpets, repair the seats, back up the computers, repair the dome, clean the projectors, remove outdated materials, and all that other stuff that is so much easier to do when you don't have to worry about customers coming in.  Another reason is that we do need some time in the theater to work out programming issues, and September is generally slow, what with kids just back to school and all.  Finally, the Abbitt Planetarium is run mostly by two people, and after a long summer of 7-days-a-week operation, we're pooped!  We generally get to take our "summer vacation" after the summer months, so we can be here during the time when other folks are looking to enjoy the theater on their vacations.

So while we won't really be remodeling, the Abbitt Planetarium will be closed from September 6 through September 30, to spruce things up a bit, and get some more shows ready to go.  So what can you expect to see on October 1?

One thing we'll have going on is a continuation of our summer preschooler program The Zula Patrol: Under the Weather.  What will make it extra fun is that we're partnering with the Children's Museum of Richmond, who will be hosting a Zula Patrol themed exhibit during the fall!  If you're a member of the VLM, you can visit the Children's Museum for free and enjoy the Zula Patrol experience.  If you're a member of CMoR, come visit the VLM for the planetarium show!  You'll receive a discount on your admission to the museum, and the Zula Patrol show for free.

The Zula Patrol.  Courtesy Spitz Creative Media.

We'll also be featuring IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar System.  If you've not yet seen this visually stunning show about NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, come join us this fall for sure.  This show will be gone in November, as we'll be transitioning over to our holiday programming by Thanksgiving (which we'll also be working on this September!).  IBEX is studying the region of space where the Sun's influence ends, and interstellar space begins.  Scientists are learning some amazing things about how this boundary keeps us safe as we journey through the Milky Way.

An artist's conception of the IBEX spacecraft.  Courtesy NASA.

And on the weekends, you can always catch Virginia Skies, our classic program about what's going on in skies above us on any given night.  Plus we'll be busy behind the scenes, getting ready for our Halloween event, Night of the Living Museum, and work has already begun on the shows that will premiere in 2012 (A doomsday show?  Oh yes, you bet we'll have a show about the end of the world!).  Can't wait until October for some fun in the planetarium?  Join us on September 10th for our monthly star party and laser light night.  Catch an evening showing of IBEX at 7:30pm, and then stay for some amazing laser shows.  At 8:30pm is Laseropolis, a fun and funky mix of great music for families.  At 10pm is Laser X, a hard-rockin' alternative experience.  Wrap up the night with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at 11:30pm.  We're really hoping for clear weather, after the rain washed out August's star party.  Hope I'll see you there!

So come by and see us this Labor Day weekend.  Take in one of the shows that will be leaving us for a while.  And then stay tuned - more fun will be coming soon!  So until then...

Carpe noctem!
Kelly

So, What Do You Think?

Hello all!

Third post, and already I'm asking for your help.

I'm writing this tonight from a conference I attend every year for planetaria who own a system like the one we have at the Abbitt Planetarium.  We all get together and share techniques, ideas, and learn new ways to make our shows better.  We also watch a lot of trailers for new shows, and sometimes get to watch an entire show, so we can make informed decisions about what programs we'd like to bring to our theaters.

So my question for you, my readers, is this:

What topic would you like to see in a new planetarium show?

At the conference so far I've seen shows on the history of the universe, the history of life on Earth, the history of the Earth for kids, the history of the Earth for adults, the lifecycles of stars, black holes, and Charles Darwin and his theories.  Keep in mind that this list is a tiny portion of the shows available, so feel free to go off the board and suggest any topic that interests you, even if it has only a very loose connection to astronomy or space science.  I'd really love to know what you think, so please leave your ideas in the comments section.  I tried to make it a poll, but the system is fighting me and making the thing unreadable.  So please, comment away!

I'll write a longer post when I get home again and digest all the new information I've learned - and believe me I'll need two weeks for that!  But my tip for you this week - wake up early Thursday morning and watch the final landing of a Space Shuttle.  Atlantis is scheduled to return to Earth at 5:56am on Thursday morning, July 21st.  It's your last chance to watch one, so be sure to tune in.  American human spaceflight is coming to an end, and I for one will sorely miss it. 

The crew of Apollo 1.  NASA

The last crew of Challenger.  NASA

The last crew of Columbia.  NASA

In memory of those who gave their lives in pursuit of knowledge of the universe...

Carpe Noctem,

Kelly