Planetarium Skies

Quarterly Newsletter of the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium

Summer Solstice 2020

Messier 27 or “The Dumbbell Nebula” is one of the prominent deep sky objects visible in the summer evening sky. M-27 is located in the very dim constellation of Vulpecula and is about 1,360 light years from Earth. The Nebula is a dying star, which can be seen in the center of the nebula, has been ejecting a shell of hot gas for over 48,000 years. New Face of the Planetarium Lobby Area By. Lisa Swaney, Director

I can finally start unveiling parts of the lobby design that are slated to happen over the next few months. The project will occur in phases as money is raised. Here are aspects of the lobby design for which project funding has been secured, and what you will see when you come back and celebrate with us.

The new tables are being built right now by the School District of Waukesha. These new tabletops will match the custom design wallpaper.

Thanks to the Waukesha County and Retzer Nature Center, new carpeting will be laid the last week of August. Areas to be covered will be the lobby area, the small room between the lobby and dome, and the team’s office or production room.

These changeable panels shown on the right are being purchased using the Waukesha Education Foundation (WEF) grant money. Four of these interchangeable panels will be included in the first part of the design. These panels allow us to change information on a more regular basis.

Painting is part of the plan before the new carpeting is placed. Looking forward to seeing a complete refresh on the walls. The color scheme is matched to the custom wallpaper to ensure a consistent theme throughout the area. Thanks again to the County for picking up this painting expense – this partnership is so appreciated! The entrance doors along with updated signage are other tasks that we hope to accomplish by this fall. The new design is in the works and I am looking forward to examining the new, improved plans. It will definitely freshen up the look and hopefully spark a lot of interest as to what is behind those doors and what is yet to come.

Lastly, here is a sample of the extremely exciting part of the project. We hope this is one of many ceiling tiles that will be spread throughout the lobby. It is truly a reflection of the amazing community of which this planetarium is a part, and all of its stakeholders that allow us to continue to offer these educational opportunities for all. We value you and look forward to many more fabulous years. Thanks to all our continued FRIENDS and to all donors thus far!

President Message Welcome to Wayne’s World: A short note of introduction to The Friends of the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium Wayne Vohnoutka “Curiosity is the essence of our existence.” - Astronaut Gene Cernan The first thing I want to do is send my appreciation and thanks to Manuel Oyervides for his 15+ years as president of the Friends group. Since he is still involved with the planetarium programs and operations, he can expect me to draw on his experience and expertise as I step into the role of President. He leaves some big shoes to fill. I also say “Thank you!” to Manuel and Director Lisa Swaney and the rest of the staff at the planetarium for their warm welcome when, many months ago, I approached them asking if there was anything I could do as a volunteer to help out. Little did I know at the time that they would keep me as busy and as involved as much as I wanted to be, and that it would ultimately lead me here, drafting this letter from the President. Here is a little more about me. I’ve been a Friend of the Planetarium for many years. Our family joined last century when our kids were in grade school and the planetarium was downtown near the library. We followed the planetarium to the Retzer Nature Center, and were thrilled with the upgrades to the dome and star ball, and then again a few years ago with the upgrade to and installation of the Digistar-6 system. The planetarium and the Retzer Nature Center are close to our home and are great places to escape and unwind. Like many Friends, we are regular visitors, taking in shows regularly and talking with other Friends. Until COVID-19, of course. In the past couple of years I chose to get more involved with the planetarium because I was impressed with the vision and energy of Director Swaney and her staff. It’s been a wonderful experience getting to know them better and to learn what happens behind the scenes to put on the programs for all of the school groups, weekend shows, sky-watches, Friends events, and more. And, now here I am, learning what they have in mind for me as new President and for the Friends organization in general. One role I plan to fill is to be a megaphone and bring a bigger voice to you, the present and future Friends of the Planetarium, with two goals in mind: 1. Continue to support Director Swaney and the School District of Waukesha activities because this facility is first and foremost a great educational tool and an extension of the classroom for thousands of local children and young adults who visit every year.

2. Get more people engaged with the planetarium and in activities. That means spreading the word to get more people interested in the planetarium and signed up to be Friends - AND – listen to and promote your ideas for activities, programming, and other things you, the Friends and general public, are curious about to help make what is being done here even better. Over the coming weeks and months, I am going to be reaching out to ask you, the Friends of the Planetarium, what you are curious about, what you would like to see, do, and make happen. With so many of our usual summer activities shut down or postponed, now is the best time to brainstorm and share your ideas. Together we can make it happen!

Reach out to me and let’s start a conversation. Contact me at [email protected] Wayne Vohnoutka President, Friends of the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium Stars and lightyears By Manuel Oyervides

Greeting everyone, I hope you are enjoying your summer. I know I am. Ok, I know it is not officially summer until June 20th but the weather has been so great that I have been enjoying working from home on my patio as much as I can.

Here is a little fun with stars and distances. Have you ever thought about how far away stars are and how they relate to your birthday? Stars are lightyears away. What is a light year? It is the distance light travels in one year: about 6 trillion miles. For example, Capella is 42 lightyears away. So, if you were born in 1978, the light that was emitted by Capella in that year is just being seen here on earth today, 42 years later.

One of the interesting things about this train of thought is that a child born today would not see the light of the closest star until he was about 4 years old. I am not including our own sun of course. The three stars of the Alpha Centauri system are the closest and they are about 4 lightyears away. Those stars’ names are Alpha (A & B) and Proxima Centauri.

Other stars and their distance from earth (rounded) Barnard’s Star 6 lightyears Wise 0855 7 lightyears Wolf 359 8 lightyears UV Ceiti 9 lightyears Ross 154 10 lightyears Groombridge 1618 15 lightyears Ross 986 20 lightyears Vega 25 lightyears Gliese 30 lightyears Rho Cancri 40 lightyears Mu Arae 50 lightyears Alphecca A 75 lightyears Nu2 Draconis A 100 lightyears

These are just a few. To find a star that is the same distance away as your age, check the net. There are lots of charts showing the distances. For example, I searched on: “stars 10 lightyear distance”. Just change the 10 to whatever number you want.

It is kind of interesting to think, if a star is 70 lightyears away, the emitted light from that star at the time of my birth has not yet reached earth. For that matter the star could have gone nova and may not even exist anymore.

Well, that is my fun thought for the day. Remember to get out and enjoy the clear night skies.

Under the Beautiful Summer Skies

By: Dave DeRemer

The warm weather of summer often inspires me to venture out into the backyard, set up a chair, and enjoy a few moments of peace under the stars. To me, exploring the sky has two main components; the science and the beauty. Throughout this narrative, I will focus on both of these sky-watching elements, as well as describe some of my favorite steps in preparing for a summer evening under the stars. Getting outside in the first place, requires some kind of inspiration. Before looking up, enjoy the beauty of the earth all around you. Allow me to share part of a poem by Nathan Baranowski, that can set the scene nicely.

In the prairies, you can hear the crickets and see the grass move like a wave There’s not a lot of human chatter You can hear animal noises from wherever you are Chirp, chirp, there are a lot of birds that take flight when the grass moves You can hear the sound of the wind It’s so peaceful

My sky-watching plan usually begins by checking some of the following web-sites:

Weather Underground www.wunderground.com/weather/us/wi/pewaukee This site shows weather conditions now, hourly, or ten days into the future. Your city can be entered into the program. Notice my home city, Pewaukee, listed last in the web-site address. A map of your area is even provided. www.Spaceweather.com This site displays current information on many space events such as; solar flare alerts, auroras, comets and other observing highlights.

www.heavens-above.com This site shows the current location of international space station as well as offer positions of dozens of satellites, comets, asteroids and sky charts www.Skymaps.com I have used this site for many years. I enjoy the excellent sky maps and the information on the back about great binocular and telescope objects in the current evening sky.

I like to slowly turn to each direction to pick out my favorite constellations. After that, I try to find some of my favorite binocular objects.

M13 Globular Cluster in M39 Open Star Cluster M7 Open cluster in Hercules in Cygnus Scorpius

I hope that my appreciation for the science and beauty of the sky will inspire you to head outdoors this summer and enjoy an evening under the stars.

Where are all the Aliens?

by

Dennis Roscoe, Ph.D.

One of the biggest questions asked today is, are we alone in the universe? Just in our own Milky Way Galaxy, there are approximately 200 billion stars, most of which have planets! New Hubble telescope estimates have given us the unimaginable number of two trillion (2,000,000,000,000) more galaxies. Back in our tiny corner of the universe, over the last two decades, we have discovered thousands of exoplanets (planets that are located outside our solar system). Nearly 20% of these exoplanets are in the Habitable Zone, being at just the right distance from their parent star to support liquid water, which we believe is necessary to support life as we know it. If there are so many possible lifesupporting exoplanets in the Milky Way, not to mention throughout the entire universe, where are all the aliens? This question was first addressed by Enrico Fermi over 70 years ago and has been known as the Fermi Paradox. It is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for aliens, and the high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. I will address this paradox and propose several hypotheses that could explain why we seem to be alone. Despite all of the news about UFO sightings, abductions by aliens and Area 51 alien spacecraft parts and bodies, there is NO credible evidence of aliens. UFOs are by definition Unidentified Flying Objects. You cannot take the next step and claim alien pilots. Eyewitness reports and claims of alien abductions are proven to be unreliable and are not science-grounded evidence. For over 50 years, SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence organization, has been listening for intelligent signals from outer space and have heard nothing. There is a collection of hypotheses, called Filters, that attempt to explain why we have seen no evidence of alien civilizations or actual aliens. Are there a lot of these filters or just one Great Filter that is so difficult to overcome or dangerous that no species can get beyond it? Have we made it past this Great Filter or is it still ahead of us? Perhaps becoming a complex intelligent human being with a big brain that allows us to contemplate our existence and explore the cosmos is the Great Filter that we have managed to put behind us. What if it isn’t? The Distance Filter. In astronomy, we measure vast distances in how far light travels in one year. A light year (ly) is approximately 5.9 trillion miles. The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 ly across and we estimate the current size of our universe to be 93 billion ly across. Why are these overwhelming distances a filter? The answer is simply, the time it takes to travel any where outside our solar system. The nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b at 4.2 ly from Earth. How long would it take to get there? The fastest spacecraft we currently have is the Parker Solar Probe which, with a gravity assist from the Sun, will obtain a velocity of nearly 500,000 mph. At this velocity it would still take 6,000 years for a one way trip! Even at 25% of the speed of light (167,400,000 mph), the same trip would take 17 years! What about exoplanets that are 100s or 1,000s of lys away? The vastness of our universe is certainly a filter, with time being the barrier. The Self-Destruction Filter. This filter may be the best candidate for the Great Filter. As civilizations become more advanced, their energy consumption goes up, the stress on the planet’s environment increases and their technology potentially becomes lethal to its own inventors. By example, look at the energy consumption of our own world and its disastrous effects on our environment. Climate change left unchecked has become our number one threat to our future existence. The super powers of the world have weapons of mass destruction that could destroy life on Earth many times over. One political misstep or an autonomous weapons system hacked by terrorists could send the world population back to the dark ages or even extinction in a blink of an eye. Could it be that advanced civilizations self-destruct under the weight of their own technology?

Extinction Event Filter. Contrary to popular belief, the universe was not fine-tuned for human life. We live in a bubble made up of the Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere. This bubble protects us from the radiation from solar eruptions like solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and harmful ultraviolet rays. The Parker Solar Probe, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the ESA Solar Orbiter, just to name a few, constantly monitor our Sun for CMEs that if sufficiently large and a direct hit, would melt our power grids, kill our satellite network, ground our airplanes and send us back to the horse and carriage days. Even more dangerous, there are cosmic rays that would tear our DNA apart if they could penetrate our bubble in sufficient quantities. In fact, the universe is a continuous threat to our existence. In Earth’s history, there have been at least five extinction events with the most recent 66 million years ago due to an asteroid wiping out the dominate specie at the time, the dinosaurs. Does the next six mile wide asteroid have the Earth in its sights? Referred to as Near Earth Objects (NEOs), we are constantly monitoring space for asteroids, comets and interstellar objects that could be the next extinction event. The Zoo Filter. Finally, maybe aliens have already visited us and determined that we are not developed enough or sufficiently intelligent to warrant contact. Any civilization capable of interstellar or intergalactic travel could be 1,000s of years more advanced. By their standards, they may look at us as cute little creatures with simple and novel tools. Remember, the human genome differs from the chimpanzee genome by just 1.2%. Imagine a 3 or 4% difference in aliens, if they have genomes at all. I would like to conclude with a quote from Stephen Hawking; “I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth”.

Planetarium...En Español, By Natalia Bonilla

During the last couple school years I’ve had the privilege to see how our Planetarium provides opportunities to embrace our diversity and enrich our students' lives and community by hosting Bilingual culturally relevant shows, such as “La Arqueoastronomía Maya” (Mayan Archeoastronomy) y “La Arqueoastronomía Mexicana” (Mexican Archeoastronomy) and more. It is very exciting to be part of this process. I enjoy recording voice overs to have more shows in Spanish! It's definitely a team work, Lisa Swaney and Adam Mcculloch are extremely instrumental and make a special effort to provide a high quality final product, including the Start Talks before each show..and flyers and other marketing materials, also En Español that complemented very well each presentation. The result...a beautiful show completely in Spanish, such as Nueve Planetas y contando... (Nine Planets and Counting...).

I love to attend the shows En Español and see and hear first hand the comments and feedback from our Bilingual students! They are learning Spanish quickly thanks to the School District of Waukesha's successful Dual Language Program and presentations like these, which are designed completely in Spanish, offer them a wonderful opportunity to practice their Bilingualism in a meaningful way outside of school.

We had presentations en Español open to the public during the weekends as well. It was marvelous to see Spanish speaking grandparents, parents and small children and our Bilingual community, learning and having fun as a family during these events that celebrated their ethnicity and culture. For many of them, this was their first time visiting our Planetarium! All of them were excited to learn about its shows and events en Español ...and also in English!

I greatly appreciate our Planetarium´s and its supporters and donors for their dedication to ensure that our community has more events en Español!

¡Gracias! Natalia Bonilla Interpreter and Translator School District of Waukesha

Spanish Projects at the Planetarium By Kally Dey

Recently, the Planetarium has developed a new feature-- the ability to project programs in a variety of different languages. This year, Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium has been committed to taking advantage of such an appealing and diversifying program.

My name is Kally Dey, and I am a graduating senior at Carroll University. I was welcomed to the Planetarium as a Spanish intern this past year. My work has primarily consisted of applying mySpanish skills in a variety of ways, through engaging bilingual students, developing & executing marketing strategies and facilitating community outreach with Waukesha’s Latinx population.

The Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium has begun showing all-Spanish shows to students participating in dual-language classes of all ages in the Waukesha School District. My role in the demonstration of these shows has been welcoming students upon entry to the show and providing background knowledge/introductions before and after programs in Spanish. I also gathered contact information and developed marketing materials to encourage more dual-language classes to take a field trip to the planetarium.

In addition, the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium held its first all-Spanish show for the public in early October. I facilitated community outreach for this event by distributing flyers and spreading the word about the event at my university, local latinx restaurants, bakeries and schools. Despite having to cancel the spring Spanish show, the planetarium plans to continue these events in the coming year.

In all, being a Spanish intern for the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium has been an absolute pleasure of mine. I truly believe that my work at the planetarium has enhanced our community outreach and the experience of dual-language students when they come to the planetarium. I have gained many skills in the areas of translation, public speaking and marketing, skills I would not have obtained in combination with Spanish had I not pursued this opportunity.

Thank you to the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium for such a wonderful opportunity and remember, the sky is certainly NOT the limit :)

The Other Globular Cluster in Hercules By Steve Diesso

M-92 Messier 92 is the other Globular Cluster in the constellation of Hercules. Unlike its more famous brother M-13, M-92 is often overlooked and never really given the recognition it deserves. Located in the northern part of Hercules, M-92 has no bright nearby stars, making it more difficult to locate in a telescope. At magnitude 6.4 it is not visible, even under a dark sky, to the naked eye an requires binoculars or a small finder telescope to even spot it.

But once located, M-92 has that “WOW’ factor that many other globular clusters do not have. Dominated by a very condensed central core that is equaled by only a few globular clusters. In a large telescope it dazzles the eye.

M-92 IS my favorite Messier object. I never pass up the opportunity to observe it when Hercules is visible.

So, if you want to see something truly stunning, take a peek at this overshadowed cluster.

I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Planetarium Schedule

Well, it is official. We will be opening on Wednesday, July 8th for our Wild Wednesdays. We will plan on running Wild Wednesdays for the rest of the summer. A few differences, though, will be that it will only be pre-registration. Pre-registration must take place through the County website. Show size will be maxed out at 22 individuals. This is the number that we believe we can support and still adhere to the CDC guidelines set forth at the point of this newsletter article. I can’t say for sure that things won’t change as one thing that we have learned for sure is that these last few months have caused everyone to be very fluid with their planning. Our first priority is the safety and wellness of our guests. Seats will be assigned to ensure social distancing the best way possible. Masks are highly recommended. Shows and show times are listed below:

July 8th, 15th, 22nd, & 29th 10:00 am- Max Goes to the Moon 1:00 pm- The Zodiac: The Stars, the Moon, & Part of the Sun

August 5th, 12th, & 19th 10:00 am- Did an Asteroid Really Kill the Dinosaurs? 1:00 pm- Our Violent Planet

Other opportunities on the horizon are Wellness Nights at Retzer- Sunset Mediation show with some type of hike. Look for future emails regarding dates and times for those events. Other news to share is Apple Harvest Fest has been canceled, and Science Fest has been changed to October 15th – 18th under a virtual format. We are still working out the details. More to follow.

Lastly, the plan is return to Saturday public shows (11:00 am & 1:00 pm) in the Fall months of either September (after Labor Day) or October. Tickets will be pre-sale only through Ticketleap and will be maxed out according to the newest guidelines. Right now, Mesmerica is slated to run again in September which means that public shows would start in October.

Hope to see you at the dome soon!