PLANETARIAN Journal of the International Planetarium Society Vol

Home , Armagh Planetarium, The Dinosaur Heresies

PLANETARIAN Journal of the International Planetarium Society Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997

Articles 5 Buzz Aldrin Promotes Mars Exploration in Your Show ...... John Mosley

7 What Really Killed the Dinosaurs? .0 ...... Jim Manning

17 Eugenides Foundation 1997 Script Contest ...... 0. e ...... Alan Davenport

21 Tony] enzano, In Memorium ...... 0 ••• '0' ••••••••••••••••• 0. e ...... Lee Shapiro

Features 25 Book Reviews ...... April S. Whitt

30 Planetarium Memories .. e •••••••••••••••••••••••• 0 ...... Kenneth E. Perkins 32 Planetechnica: Low-Tech Slide Alignment ...... Richard McColman 36 Mobile News Network ...... Sue Reynolds 37 Regional Roundup ...... Lars Broman 43 Computer Corner: Mars Rover ...... Ken Wilson 45 President's Message ...... Thomas Kraupe 49 What's New ...... Jim Mantling 53 Gibbous Gazette ...... Christine Shupla 54 Jane's Corner ...... Jane Hastings " l1,c ZKPJ ;'\' jalltastic ... It IJrojec/x Ih e 11/ 0 0 1/ phases wilh (l rea/ism I 'lel 'a kllew Iw .'is ihle ;11 a plalletarium. l Is .wllIller sh e opells lip Ih e .~ k)' 11111£'1, beller for III tl1l)' .\'/lldellis. I dOl/ 't have to 1I'0r,)' about poillliug Ollt Sirius. all(/ 1I(1I1iug IIlI(f l /i e cla .~s flllable (() see ",/t al I 'm PO ;U(;Uf.: to . ..

•J ;/11 lJ eaber. IJira lur Robel" II. j O/I1I .WJII P/a ll elllrill lll l.llkew()(}(/. C% rtul"

ln~lallC'tI in ktli:r:-on Count) SdlOUI Di..,tr1ct", Rohl..'TI 1-1 . John ... on Planetariulll in 19lJ5. the ZKPJ Skyma~ll'r projector from Zci ...... hOI!'> exceeded Jim Beaber· ... C'xpectation:.. J)c ... igncd (0 fit new or exi:.ling dome :-.i/(" of 1610 36 fccLlhe Z KPJ i:-. small in diIl1CIl!'>iu lls. btl! vcr:-.a tile in performance. II :. ~\;lrtkld will projC'cl 0\ cr 7000 :-'\<1["'''' and can be cu\101ll (ksigncd 10 (,1I"'- IO lller speci fication..;. Control desk and (,.'()m pUl er aut()1l1:lliotl an: pan of Ih ... ba:-.ic ..;y:-.I ... Ill .

The ZKP3· Quality performance. Compact & versat ile.

For morl' information ahout the S k~ ' nHls t e r ZKPJ. the Star master Z ~ II'. or Uninrsa ri um ~ I V III l',1I1 P(,

170 E Kirkham Ave , St. LOUIS, MO 63119. N ew Orlean s Sales Office:1-BOO-726-BB05 Fax:504- 764- 7665 em ail:[email protected] The Planetarian (ISN 0090-3213) is published the International Planetarium Society. © 1997. International Planetarium Society. Inc.. reserved. Opinions exP,rcssed e by authors are personal opinions and are not the opinions of the International etarium Society. its officers. or agents. of advertisements. announcements, 1. 26 o. 2 material does not imply endorsement by International Planetarium Society. its agents. The Editor welcomes items for consideration for Please consult June 1997 "Guidelines for Contributors" printed in the 1995 issue and The Editor reserves the right to edit any manuscript to suit this needs.

E F R

Bowen Los rul~Cll'l;;), (1) 213-664-1181 work phone (1) 818-708-7314 home fax [email protected]

Hansen Planetarium Joe Hopkins 15 South State Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 USA (1) 801-531-4949 Miami (1) 801-531-4948 fax [email protected] Minolta NEOS Individual: $40 one year; two years Planetarium Institutional: $150 first year; $75 annual renewal S. Library Subscriptions: $24 one year Direct mem bership requests and changes ofaddress Seiler to the Treasurer/l'vfembership Chairman Sky-Skan, Inc. I. Spitz, To receive word of new position openings in the planetarium field, send up to six self-addressed stamped envelopes to: S. Fentress, Director i Strasenburgh Planetarium P.O. Box 1480 Jon U. Bell "-"IU''-' ..... ,...... = the r.rt'lf>c1-,Pt" New York 14603 USA Lars Broman Available from: Charlene Oukes Jane G. IPS Back Publications Repository Jane's Strasenburgh Planetarium Richard McColman P.O. Box 1480 Planetechnica Rochester, New York 14603 USA

Jim "'VAL-<'AAA.,-U.AJ'F, Ken Wilson A cumulative index of major articles that have What's New appeared in the Planetarian from the first issue through the current issue is available on paper Planetarium Memories ppd) or disk ppd) from the Exec. Editor.

March: International Planetarium 0 ety September: World Wide Web Home Page: http://www.GriffithObs.org/IPSPlanetarian.html http://sunsite.unc.edu ps

Vol. 1997 Planetarian President Execu.tive Sec:r@~ta.ry Historian/Photo-Archivist Thomas W. Kraupe Lee Ann Hennig, Planetartum John Hare EuroPlaNet Thomas Jefferson High School Ash Enterprises Rumfordstr. 41 6560 Braddock Road 3602 23rd Avenue West D-80469 Muenchen. Germany Alexandria. Virginia 22312 USA Bradenton, Florida 34205 USA (49) 89-21031531 (1) 703-750-8380 (1) 941-746-3522 (49) 89-21031532 fax (1) 703-750-5010 fax (1) 941-750-9497 fax [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] http://homepages.munich.net surf. de/Thomas. Kraupe/ Treasu.rer and Membership Publications Chair Chair Undine Concannon President Elect Shawn Laatsch Planetarium Administrator Dale Smith Arthur Storer Planetarium London Planetarium c/o Hansen Planetari111m Planetarium 600 Dares Beach Road Mruylebone Road 15 South State Physics & Astronomy Dept. Prince Frederick. MD 20678 London NW 1 5LR, ~nlglarld Salt Lake Utah Bowling Green State University USA (44) 171-487-0227 Bowling Green. OH 43403 USA (1) 410-535-7339 (44) 171-465-0862 fax (1) 419-372-8666 [email protected] IPS Web Site: (1) 419-372-9938 fax Elections Committee Chairman. [email protected] 1998 Conference Chair Steven Mitch Undine Concannon Benedum Natural Science Past President Planetarium Administrator Center Jim Manning London Planetarium Oglebay Park Taylor Planetarium Marylebone Road Wheeling. WV 26003 Museum of the Rockies London NW1 5LR England (1) 304-243-4034 Bozeman Montana 59717 USA (44) 171-486-1121 (1) 304-243-4110 fax (1) 406-994-6874 (44) 171-465-0862 fax [email protected] (1) 406-994-2682 fax conference: June 28 - July 2 amrnjm@gernini,oscs,rnontana.edu

P ..

Association of French-Speaking European/Mediterranean Tokyo 167 Japan RWlsian Planetariums Asso~~latlo~n Planetariums Planetarium Association (81) 3-3396-4391 Zinaida P. Sitkova Agnes Acker Dennis Simopoulos (81) 3-3396-4393 fax Nizhny Novgorod Planetarium Planetarium Strasbourg Eugenides Planetarium [email protected] Pokhyalinsky S'Yezd 5-A Universite Louis Pasteur Syngrou Avenue-Amfithea Nizhny Novgorod. 603001. Rue de L'Observatoire Athens. Greece Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society (7) 8312-34-21-51 6700 Strasbourg, France (30) 1-941-1181 Fred Stutz (7) 8312-36-20-61 fax 33-388 212042 (30) 1-941-7372 fax 302 Beechgrove Court [email protected] 33-388 212045 fax [email protected] Millersville. Maryland 21108 USA Southeastern Planetarium Assoc. of Mexican Planetariums Great Lakes Planetarium Assoc. Nordic Planetarium Assoclation John Hare Ignacio Castro Pinal Susan Reynolds Lars Broman Ash Fntprnri·...... Museo Technologico C.F.E. Onondaga-Cortland-Madison Broman Planetarium 3602 West Apartado Postal 18-816 B.O.C.E.S. Planetarium Ostra Hamngatan 1 Bradenton. Florida 34205 CP 11870 Mexico City. D.F. Mexico P.O. Box 4774 3-791 71 Falun, Sweden (1) 941-746-3522 (52) 55-16-13-57 Syracuse. New York 13221 USA (46) 2310 177 0) 941-750-9497 fax (52) 55-16-55-20 fax (1) 315-433-2671 (46) 2310 137 (fax) [email protected] (1) 315-433-1530 fax [email protected] British Assoc. of Planetariums [email protected] http://www.nrm.se/om/xtra Southwestern Asso4ciatio'n Undine Concannon /tc-wnpa.html Planetariums London Planetarium Great Plains Planetarium Assoc. Wayne Wyrick Marlybone Road April Whitten. Business Mgr. Pacific Planetarium Assoclation Kirkpatrick Planetarium London NWI 5LR. England Mallory Kountze Planetarium Jon Elvert 200 NE 52nd st. (44) 171-487-0227 60th & Dodge Streets Lane ESD Planetarium Oklahoma City. OK 73111 (44) 171-465-0862 fax Omaha. Nebraska 68182 USA 2300 Leo Harris (1) 405-424-5545 work (1) 402-554-2510 Eugene. Oregon USA (1) 405-424-5106 fax Canadian Council of Science (1) 402-554-3100 (1) 541-461-8227 [email protected] Centres [email protected] (1) 541-687-6459 fax John Dickenson. Managing Director [email protected] Uk:ranian Planetadumil Pacific Science Centre Italian Planetaria's Friends Assoc. http://www .efn.org! -esd-plt/ Dr. Alexander P. Lenin 1100 Chestnut st. Loris Ramponi Republica! Planetarium Vancouver. BC V6J 3J9 Canada National Archive of Planetaria Rocky Mountain Planetarium 57/3 Krasnoarmeiskaia Street 604-738-7817 ex 234 c/o Centro studi e rieerehe Serafmo Auoeiation Kiev 252 005. Ukraine 604-736-5665 fax Zan! John R. Peterson. RMPA President (744) 227-51-66 [email protected] via Bosea 24. CP 104 El Paso ISD Planetarium (744) 227-51-43 fax 25066 Lumezzane (Brescia). Italy 6531 Boeing Dr. Council of German Planetariums (39) 30 298 3686 El Paso, Texas 79925 USA Prof.Dr. Dieter B. Herrmann (39) 30370 1048 fax (1) 915-779-4316 Zeiss-Grossplanetarium Berlin (1) 915-779-4098 fax Prenzlauer Allee 80 Japan Planetarium Society [email protected] D-l0405 Berlin. Germany Soichi Itoh +49-30-42184512 Suginami Science Education Center +49-30-4251252 fax 3-3-13 Shimizu. Suginami-ku. Produced at the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California http://www.GriffithObs.org/IPSPlanetarian.html

4 Planetarian lowed by an eloquent statement Aldri m the importance ofa human ..... ,0""".".."·0 u Pr t space. A script was under seven minutes. It was written so ars Expl rati n in could be incorporated into any plane1:ari'um show on Mars eX1Jloratlion - or space ration in - as a stand-alone ~ ur Planetarium Sh w The Television Production rIo,,,,.,""'~..,,..':>nf- Saddleback College, near where Dr. lives, offered to donate studio time as John Mosley lic service. On Aprill5 we recorded Buzz ed in front of a blue-screen. He also rec:onied Griffith Observatory a short promotional piece for the video. 2800 East Observatory Road The Observatory art lead Los Angeles, CA 90027 Director Don Dixon and Re,cordirU!1ingine(:!r Jennifer Barak, created video that Uhlstlrat4:;!S [email protected] the pOints in Dr. Aldrin's narration. he talks about 15th century Former astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin went to that would rendezvous with them A pair of see sailing where he talks about the moon almost thirty years ago, but since these spacecraft would open Mars to perma Cyclers, we see sketches of them. This then he's been thinking about how to get us nent exploration and colonization. ground video was done in-house and to Mars. Through his work as chair of the We at Griffith worked with Dr. Aldrin on a est in scale, but we believe it is effective. National Space Society, his private company planetarium show some years ago. In 1979 he video we use in our Mars show wi th a Starcraft Enterprises, his recent novel graciously recorded an ll-minute audio tape dose-up shot of Buzz and then alternates Encounter with Tiber, and innumerable lec of his recollections of what it was like to between Buzz and other visuals tures, interviews, and television appearances, walk on the moon. That tape was used in times, ending with Buzz making his conclud he has spent the last few decades promoting Griffith Observatory's public planetarium ing statement. the continued manned exploration of space. show "We Came in Peace," which was pre As a service to the planetarium communi He strongly believes that our future is in sented that year. ty, the Griffith Observatory will distribute space and that an ambitious program of exploring the solar system will give our soci Buzz Aldrin recorded a short video statement promoting the ety the goals and focus we need to accom ration of Mars that he would like to share with the planetarium plish great things. Our achievements in space will be our legacy. community. It was written and produced to make it easy to Dr. Aldrin has thought about how to go porate it into your next planetarium show on Mars or on from one planet to another for a long time. exploration. Shortly after the first Americans touched the edge of space in the Mercury program, he realized that true space travel would require In 1989 we presented a revised version of copies of this tape for a nominal the ability for one spacecraft to rendezvous the show that accommodated new informa any planetarium that requests it. The tape and dock with another. He selected for his tion about the moon, and we reused the contains two segments: (1) Buzz seated and doctoral thesis at MIT in 1963 the task of audio tape. It occurred to me that other "1-/'.U~'UJl)l;, into the camera and with finding a solution to the problem of manned etariums might like to incorporate Dr. aways to other visuals and then back orbital rendezvous with another spacecraft. Aldrin's narrations into their shows too, so and (2) Buzz speaking the short prc)m()Uolflai Three years later Dr. Aldrin put the routines we made it available to others in 1988 as a piece against a black background. Planetar he developed for his thesis into practice service to the planetarium community (see iums are free to add their own video back when he steered and docked his Gemini Planetarian, Voll7, #4, December 1988). For a grounds to the narration and to make other spacecraft to an Agena target. He later nominal fee that covered expenses, we dis reasonable modifications to present it extended the exercise while in orbit around tributed copies of it to planetariums around their theaters. the moon. It's ironic and little appreciated the world, and Dr. Aldrin's comments were The cost for a copy of the is US $20 today that it was Dr. Aldrin who developed heard by planetarium audiences as part of check or money order, made out to IIGriffith the orbital procedures that made it possible local shows on the moon and space explo Observatory MRP-860." To costs down to travel to the moon. ration. the Observatory cannot accept Durcllas;e Taking that successful idea to the next Now Dr. Aldrin is looking to the future. orders. The tape is available in VHS, .rlv,n, ... level, Dr. Aldrin has spen t more almost two When he learned that we were producing a or Hi-8 formats. Please specify format (if decades thinking about orbital solutions to new planetarium show on the exploration none is specified we will send VHS). The $20 the problem of getting to Mars and back of Mars, he offered to participa teo After sever cost includes the video tape, u.UI-/U\..

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian The text of Dr. Aldrin's narration, fol I've that consist of a lowed by the short promotional, is: central hub, a habitation module shielded from solar and the power Hi, I'm Buzz Aldrin. In 1969 Neil Arm three are connect- historical character. Our strong and I landed on the moon, but since ed by long, multi-cable tethers and spun c:h:t,pntllu taking the challlelnge then I've been thinking about how to to around the center to artificial the frontier has imbued our Mars. gravity. many of its characteristics. At present we're sending automatic In practice, the system means we Many years after 11's historic orbiters, surveyors and rovers. This is a good no longer have to repeatedly accelerate and ing, I'm struck how many times way to start, but ultimately we're going to decelerate - or discard - the most massive come up to me, who seem .... V.AJ~ ..ll" ..... want to send people. cOlnponent:s. Like an ocean liner on a regu me where were while Neil The shortest path may not be the best In lar trade route, the Cycler would glide per walked on the moon. I can see that the 15th century, European mariners petually along its beautifully predictable has for them peI'SOIlaU learned to take advantage of the tropic planetary flybys would create It somehow enriched their lives to winds that blow steadily westward to move an new economic and philosophic ious and witnesses their caravels across the vast, trackless approach to exploration, carrying mankind been alive when it nalDPEnea. ocean. They relied on another system of on the next great age of exploration - and easterly winds to return them to their eventually to colonization and interplane home ports. These looping, curving routes tary trade. did not follow direct courses, but using the Why is it to send humans to wind saved energy. These trade winds Mars? became bridges between continents, mak There is the scientific interest in search ing possible the great age of discovery. ing for life on another planet It is extraordi once I've developed a relatively inexpensive narily difficult to find truly ancient fossils Our age is not and dependable transportation system that here on earth, and no robotic Mars craft can by cathedrals ... or n't1 .... ~l'Y'll£l(: uses gravity to open Mars to long-term make the kind of search which bigger The eX}:lloring exploration. It involves reusable spacecraft V/'ar"1i .. ~ trained scientists. We will never affirmation of faith in our which I caU "Cyclers." Cyclers take advan know the history of Mars until we go there tage of the way the earth, traveling faster in person. on an inside orbit around the sun, catches Mars about every two earth years. A cycling spacecraft in an elliptical orbit would go from the earth to Mars and back again, permanently cycling between the orbits of The text the two planets. Like a ship sailing the trade winds, a cycling spacecraft does not follow Hi - I'm Buzz Aldrin. Years ago a linear route to Mars. When the planets are the moon, but since then I've been aligned, it accelerates away from earth and about how to to Mars. I've aeSilgIlea loops outward, swinging close to Mars five that will create a whole months later. But instead of stopping, it ap~)ro;lch to space and that releases smaller ships that ferry people open Mars to colonization and supplies to the surface. The inten>laIletary trade. I'll tell Cycler itself acquires some of about it in the the planet's momentum in a show. process called "gravity assist," and it glides majes tically on, curving away and even tually back to Additional information earth. It returns home 21 mon ths after departure, but it doesn't stop. With another boost from earth's gravity it sails on - back to Mars. In a sense the vehicle becomes a permanent, man-made companion of the earth and Mars, using the free and inexhaustible fuel supply of gravity to maintain its orbit Buzz Aldrin in the recording studio of the Television Production Department at Saddle back College, California, April 15, 1997.

6 P/anetayian Vol. hypothesis it was. But that was then; more than ten years of additional studies, I I i II isn't the evidence ,.....,"' .. ,,,., 41) reaB y need to I today?

"Something has survived ... " and a good sized earth-banger is sent on its The Museum of the Rockies where work So rumbles the movie trailer for "The Lost way toward the dinosaur-infested late is a multifaceted museum, but no facet World," the sequel to the blockbuster film Cretaceous earth. shines brighter than its dinosaurs. And "Jurassic Park," which hits American theaters The chilling scenario is played out: dino there's like being around dinosaurs this summer-setting off, no doubt, a whole saurs minding their own business, then the and their handlers-the paleclntOj()gl~;ts--to new round of dino mania. It may also spawn massive bolide streaking out of nowhere, gain some a flurry of new or dusted-off dinosaur shows and then WHAM!-destruction, chaos, and a Questions that surround them. in planetariums taking advantage of the good Ylem effect. A vast cloud of dust blan The museum is known for the work of public interest. But the catch phrase in our kets the earth, and an extended winter of paleontologist Jack Horner, famous for the science education theaters is more likely to darkness and cold sets in. First the plants go, discovery of dinosaur nesting sites in Mon be "Nothing has survived ... " then the herbisaurs, then the carnosaurs, tana and his subsequent theories about There's no denying the cc1ebrity of dino along with half to three-quarters of all dinosaur social behavior. Our dinosaur saurs; they're big (mostl y), scary, mysteri- species of Hfe (percentages vary, even among 0us-and they get great press. With Godzilla like cachet, they have thundered across the I like the impact theory. It\s dramatic. It's full of astrono- popillar imagination ever since 19th-century my. It plays well in the theater. A plaUSible case can be built bone-collectors realized what they had They And of course, it may be right. There's just one little thing. It are also safel y dead, and that fact forms a principle part of their mystique; they have also be wrong. virtually become poster children for that most dinosaurian of all denouements: scientists). And when the dust clears and the exhibits illustrate what life may extinction. And therein, largely, is where sun comes out at last, so do little milquetoast like back but you don't have planetarians find their stake in the franchise. mammals projected against the mighty the exhibits' word for it. In a way, you go Since 1980, when the cosmic impact theo saurian skeletons, who have survived the dis see for yourself. ry of dinosaur demise made its serious debut, aster by burrowing and eating carrion. Well In the summer, the museum conducts planetarians have joyfully embraced it as an fed and rested and ready to roll, they now daily tours and week-long field schools at opportunity to legitimatc1y link astronomy proceed to evolve, diversify and rille in the "Egg Mountain," the site excavated Jack to those icons from the Age of Reptiles. dinosaurs'stead. and his associates since the late 1970's. The "Death of the Dinosaurs" presentations have Additional points may be emphasized: the scrubby knoll and surrounding badlands become planetarium staples as a result. similar scenario of nuclear winter, the need west of Choteau, Montana have the Everybody does them, and in their Simplest to find earth-crossing asteroids because it can remains of eggs and nests and babies and form, they go something like this ... happen again, the human species as the adults of several Cretaceous dinosa urs

The show is about dinosaurs, or maybe world's current biggest disaster threat. And .:>~,c\...... >, including the duckbill Maiasaura ll comets and asteroids, or cosmic threats to so the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs (the !'Good Mother Lizard ), the smaller earth. Somewhere around the middle, or is solved, with lessons for us today. sHophodont Orodromeus, and the small car nearer the end, the dinosaurs are (literally) I like the impact theory. It's dramatic. It's nivore Troodon. set up: big, successful, rillers of earth for 160 sexy. It's fillI of astronomy. It plays wen in By day, field schoolers work with million years, the very flower of the Meso the theater. A plausible case can be built for tology graduate students who lead sorties zoic Age (well, once flowers had been invent it. And of course, it may be right. into the badlands, hunting and 80 ed). But then, intones the narrator ominous There's just one little thing. It may also be million year-old fossils that no human has ly, something happened, for almost overnight, wrong. ever laid eyes on before. You go pro- they all vanished from the earth. Do we include any such equivocation in specting for new finds, up bits of Why? the narrator asks. Scientists now our presentations? Some planetarians do. black eggshell weathering out of Maiasaur think they know ... And so the iridium Some do not, and back in 1986, Mick Hager, nest sites along the way. Or chip at the hard anomaly at the Cretaceous-Tertiary bound the Museum of the Rockies' former director, matrix of Egg Mountain itself, new ary is invoked, its extraterrestrial nature is raised eyebrows at several planetarium con hypsilophodont nests, eggs or bits of bone. surmised, asteroids and comets as earth ferences when he took us to task for playing Or hunt for ornithomimid remains, or bangers are introduced (if not already done), the theory more as a given than as the Daspletosaur teeth, or "c(mI~olilte~;"-·to~)sHize~d

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian dino dung. Or dig into the bone bed underly and is content to go on puzzling out how large and impressive a race. Owen ing the site which contains the jumbled they lived rather than when, exactly, the last suggested that God had placed QlIl0saUlr:s remains of an estimated 10,000 Maiasaurs one died the earth during a past period of low presumed to have succumbed during a Paleontologists, I've found, expect corrob content in the air-it was "f'\,rn"'rn gigantic volcanic eruption, their bones later oration in the fossil record for sexy theories. (Owen) figured cold-blooded and JOv\l-eneX]lV mingled and washed downstream in a great And in the" Choose Your Poison" dinosaur reptiles didn't need much of. When flood sweepstakes, Jack Horner is not alone. atmosphere later became more oxyglemitedp And by night, you gawk at a stunningly the world became unsuitable for them black and starry sky, sometimes laced with A Dinosaur's Pandora's Box they turned into fossils. auroral streamers or bright Perseid meteors, Extinction is a natural part of life on earth Death by oxygen may not be the snectac mar end the catastrophist Cuvier had seeking finds of another kind with one of the But we didn't know it until the early 1800's, museum's small portable telescopes. Or sit by when French naturalist Georges Cuvier sioned, but by this time, the "uniformitarian the campfire in the night chill, listening to looked at all the old bones people were dig ism" of James Hutton and Charles taken hold as the geological par'aOlgm the coyotes howl at the rising moon before ging up and declared that they belonged to you bed down in Blackfeet tipis to the call of fabulous creatures that had long since cashed would rule subsequent views of earth nighthawks and the scritch-scratch of black in all of their chips. And from the carnage he ry. "The present is the key to the eyed mice playing on the tipi liners. found in some of the some rock layers, he paradigm says; lithe earth processes Egg Mountain is a wonderful place, with further declared that the cashing-in must today are a continuation of those at the pastil-and those processes seemed the panoply of dinosaur life and death laid have been catastrophic, caused by floods, out in the synclines and anticlines and erod glaciers, and earthly upheavals of a most operate mostly at a rate. ing gullies around you, the universe arching unpleasant sort. Darwin was heavily influenced above at night. It's a place where the muse In 1841, Englishman Richard Owen group paradigm, so it's not surprising that his 41 nat um combines in a Singular experience the ed those with reptile-like skeletons into a ural selection" theory of evolution involved elements of paleontology, geology, and new class he called 14Dinosauria"-"terrible the gradual accumulation of small chclflg,es astronomy-the same subjects we planetari lizards", and people began to wonder what that led species to inVigoration, doom, and ans try to combine in our dinosaur shows. kind of catastrophe could have befallen so altered forms. Abrupt changes simply meant It's a good place to contemplate gaps in the record. links between the cosmos and the But catastrophic or gradual, there dinosaurs, and to ask the Really Big had to be a reason-a the Questions. demise of the saurians, who even then If you ask Jack Horner those had an appeal that no deceased trilo questions, and I have-specifically bite or horsetail could match Cuvier the one about how the dinosaurs and Owen had gotten the ball died out-he'll tell you first that and things have been dinosaurs were among the most game of Clue ever since. successful large animals ever to Colonel Mustard in the walk the earth, and that he's much pistol? A mosqUito in the rump more interested in how they lived killer virus? Or the cosmos Next, he might tell you that Yucatan with a big rock? dinosaurs didn't die out, not com There's never been a lack of pletely; that they survive in their native scenarios for dinosaurs, descendants, the birds. But if you and they read like a veritable press him, he'll probably also tell dora's Box of miseries. "Racial you that he favors the more tradi was an early favorite; this was the tional climate- and habitat-change notion that dinosaurs simply reached theories of dinosaur extinction. the end of their genetic rope. The Why? It's not that he disputes siI record shows that dinosaurs that something big crashed into changed and adapted, new the earth 6S million years ago and replacing old, through most of the wreaked havoc with the end of the Mesozoic Period; Cretaceous period; he has no qUib out of new ideas and body Or ble with notion of an impact itself. a'i humorist Will Cuppy put it in 1941: What he'll tell you is that there is "The Age of Reptiles ended because it as yet no defini ti ve proof that had gone on long enough and it was there were any dinosaurs still alive all a mistake in the first when the thing hit; in other words, Some said that the upstart no dinosaur skeletons have yet mals did it eating the dinosaurs' been found as high in the geologi eggs. Some said the dinosaurs did it cal strata as the Cretaceous themselves by that were Tertiary boundary layer where the bad for them and excess iridium lies. And until that eggshells too thin to be changes, he considers the impact Uncovering the past at Egg Mountain. Museum of the putting on so much theory academic for dinosaurs, Rockies photo. had a problem with

8 Planetarian Vol. letting their brains shrink so that they to follow, induding the French astronomer dead But small animals mClUding became stupid (the first object lesson in "use Laplace. Most recently, Canadian geologist tral mammals survived, perh,'lps it or loose it"). Digby McLaren in 1970, American chemist on insects and decaying vege1tati0I1i Some said that the plants did it, evolving Harold Vrey in 1973, and Irish comet expert recovered via seeds, spores, and roots, into toxic forms that either poisoned the E.]. Opik some years earlier had all suggested went on. Not only that, but there were dinosaurs or gave them terminal-and mind meteoritic or cometary impacts as a good mass extinctions in the past; perh::aps boggling-cases of constipation. Some said way to kill the dinosaurs. The difference might have been that it was insects injecting them with with the Alvarez group was that they Well. Needless to say, geologists and plagues (presumabI y as the insects in turn brought serious evidence to the table. ontologists took notice, a sucked up their DNA for later recovery by According to accounts, in the late 1970's, scientific investigation and a debate Michael Crichton). And some said it was vol geologist Walter Alvarez was seeking a way about causes and effects and the fossil canoes that did it, disrupting their environ to determine an accurate time scale for, that continues to this day. The ment. Or lack of standing room on Noah's among other things, the laying down of sedi ing what the public likes and prone to ark. ments in the narrow day layer that marked it to them, jumped on the Occasionally, celestial retribution was the end of the Cretaceous Period of geologi almost immediately. As Australian 10urnaLlist cited: cosmic rays or radiation from a nearby cal history. It was a time known for the Ian Warden wrote (quoted from the supernova, sterilizing the hapless beasts or extinction of many species, from the mas The Great Dinosaur Extinction killing them outright. Or (this will sound sive dinosaurs to the tiny marine foram Officer and Page), liTo connect the dinosaurs, familiar) big meteorites or comets knocking inifera whose calcium carbonate shells made creatures of interest to but the veriest them off from space. Or even aliens from up the limestone sediments that stopped at dullard, with a spectacular event like a del Alpha Centauri on a hunting safari. the day layer, were absent during the years uge of meteors ... seems a bit like one of those But it was always the climate change theo the clay was put down, and then resumed in plots that a clever publisher might concoct ries that seemed most plaUSible; who can for newly-evolved forms in the dawning to guarantee enormous sales. All (the theo get the famous Walt Disney Dinosaur Death Tertiary Period above it. ries) lack is some sex and the involvement of March in Fantasia, the world gone to desert Walter's father, Nobel-laureate experimen the Royal Family and the whole world to the strains of Stravinky's "Rite of Spring"? tal physicist Luis Alvarez, suggested an inge would be paying attention." The main question was did the dinosaurs' nious method of timing. Iridium, a member The dinosaurs were already resurgent in world become too hot or too cold, too wet or of the platinum group of metals, was rare in the public mind; by the end of the a too dry? There were scenarios for each. earth's crust but relatively abundant in decade of discoveries, debates, and contro Whichever, loss of suitable habitat seemed meteorites; since a constant slow rain of versies were remaking the dinosaurs' old the likely winner, especially when plate tec meteoritic ash settled on the earth from public image as reptilian, stupid, and slow. tonics came into vogue, telling us that the space, why not test the concentration of irid Increasingly, they were being as dinosaurs and all the rest of earth's land life ium to surmise the time frame over which it active and agile creatures, potentially warm were constantly riding around on conti was deposited? With the help of nuclear blooded (this remains controversial), nents that acted like slow-motion bumper chemists Frank Asaro and Helen Michel, the perhaps exhibiting bird-like social ht>~,~u'irw cars. As the land masses ground together and Alvarez's analyzed samples of the clay layer with the lineage perhaps pulled apart, as mountains rose and volca near Gubbio, Italy. And they found an "iridi form of descendant birds today. And now, noes spewed forth climate-altering gases, as um spike"-an unexpected and sizeable have them perish in what would have made the seas advanced and retreated, it got hard enrichment of the metal that made it useless a top-notch disaster movie ... The whole for big, specialized animals to cope. When as a timekeeper but suggested that for some world seemed to be paying attention even the weather turned and their habitats "went reason, an awfully lot of presumably mete without the additional wrinkles "'1fTfYIO,,,tC.ri south"-so did they. oritic dust was deposited just around the by Warden. And so things went-until around 1980, time that many species of life were dying Within a few years, planetariums were when a rare metallic element concentrated out in what scientists termed a "mass extinc debuting the first "Death of the Dinosaurs" in a clay layer in sediments north of Rome tion." Two other sites in Denmark and New shows, finding the astronomical connection turned earth science on its ear. Zealand yielded similar iridium spikes at the that made dinosaurs a hot topiC under our Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary. domes. Also within a few years, scientists The Impact Hypothesis The Alvarez group put two-and-two inspired by the hypothesis (Carl In 1980 in the journal Science, a quartet of together and postulated that an asteroid among them) were developing a similar scientists made a modest proposal. Their (about 10 km or six miles wide, from the esti model for the effects of nuclear war called paper suggested that a rare metallic element mated amount of iridium deposited) "nuclear winter," adding a new chill to that found in a clay layer 65 million years old was smashed into the earth 65 million years ago ghastly cold-war prospect. And found the Signature of a global catastrophe that at a speed of thousands of miles per hour, increasing reason to search the sky for earth utterly altered the world, wiping out many making a crater 200 km (120 miles) wide and crossing asteroids that might wreak such of earth's Hfe forms including the dinosaurs. blasting debris 60 times its own volume into havoc again at some future time. Very ly, the notion of dinosaur r1"",t"i"1,_I"'1,,,_n-nn,,rt" They said an asteroid did it. I think the catas the air. The dust shrouded the earth in con trophist Cuvier might have been pleased. stant night for several years, halting photo seemed to pass into the popular culture. They weren't the first to suggest the possi synthesis. On land, plants died, then the Meanwhile, what was the scientific com- bility; that honor may go as far back as 1742, plant-eating dinosaurs, then the meat-eaters munity doing? Scientists were what when a gentleman named Pieerer de Mau who preyed on them. There was a similar scientists do: arguing among themselves. pertuis opined that comets whacked earth food chain calamity in the oceans. Challenging new ideas is a time-honored regularly and destroyed its life. Others When the dust finally settled, the scientific tradition; it's the "fail-safe" part of revived the notion periodically in the years dinosaurs and a lot of other things were the scientific method. It's not sufficient

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian merely to observe and hypothesize; you Debate (and it was always about more than telltale signs of a monster impact that rained have to test, and you have to submit your just the dinosaurs) have shed a good bit of down the debris along with the iridium. theory to the most rigorous kind of scrutiny heat and some fasCinating snatches of light Now geologists may not deal much with as your colleagues either search for support on the history of the earth, extinctions, and iridium anomalies, but they know their ing evidence or try to blow it out of the the process of science. As scientists scurried quartz, and the tiny fractures in the water. It's Darwinian science, "survival of the to look for supporting or conflicting evi were of the sort associated with n udear test fittest theory," and it keeps us from drown dence, they began to peek under the veil of sites-and impacts. And many were ing in a morass of unsupported fads and the past in ways they hadn't before. impressed. But not aU. Some contended that claims of "cold fusion." If the theory sur One needed only to look at the moon, the pressures of explosive volcanism could vives, it can become part of the scientific count earth-crossing asteroids and fossil shock and scatter the quartz and spherules as paradigms that characterize our view of how earth craters, and think of Tunguska to real well. the world works. But it's not easy to get in. ize that the threat of impact was genuine. While scientists quibbled over quartz, the And it takes time. But did it really happen, big-time, 6S million dino disaster train was building up a head of In the case of the impact hypothesis, the years earlier? Could additional evidence be steam, and impact supporters (sometimes resulting debate is sometimes characterized found? called "impactors") were suggesting corollary as a fight between the /lold" uniformitarian Scientists continued to root around in the effects that would only have increased the ism and the "new" catastrophism. Cuvier's K-T clay layer, ultimately turning up iridium woes of late Cretaceous earth-dwellers. Some concept of change-by-catastrophe had spikes at more than 100 sites world-wide; said it got more than dark; it also got cold, enjoyed a revival in the 1970's when geolo whatever happened, it appeared to have the atmospheric dust blocking solar heating gists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge sprinkled the element liberally. Investigators and plunging the temperature to below proposed a modification to Darwinian theo reported tiny metallic spherules (now found freezing for time periods now characterized ry called "punctuated equilibrium." They at more than 30 sites), and the presence of in months rather than years. (Scientist's theo suggested that the fossil record revealed not shocked quartz grains as well (noted at more ries couldn't keep the dust aloft for three gradual evolution over time, but rather,long then 60 sites). Both were contended to be years as originally suggested, but they felt periods of equilibrium punctuat they could keep it up for three to ed by episodes of rapid evolution six months and still do the trick.) ary change. The impact hypothe Others said that injected green sis fitted neatly into this concept, house gases like water vapor and it was used to assail the uni would have made things hot; formitarian view which had held some suggested first it got really sway for more than a century cold, and then really hot. Opinion and whose proponents resisted still doesn't seem quite settled on the abandonment of more gradu this, but either way was bad alist theories of extinction for a And there was more. Some sci deus ex machina in the form of a entists said that the energy of the big rock from space. impact would have created nitro Was resistance to the new gen oxides in the atmosphere, hypothesis simply the old guard falling to earth as a global acid hanging on to their beloved rain; others later added sulfuric paradigm? Or resentment that acid from vaporized rock to the the leading lobbyist for the theo nasty cocktail. Still others in 1990 ry-Luis Alvarez-was a physicist reported soot at several boundary dabbling in another science's sites, and postulated global wild realm? In some cases, perhaps. But fires (set by flaming blast frag it's too pat an answer and far too ments or lightning strikes on broad a brush with which to dried vegetation) that consumed paint the whole of the opposi up to half of the world's biomass. tion. Impact supporters were painting The burden of proof for a new a gruesome picture of aftermath; scientific theory inevitably falls Walter Alvarez termed the pro on its proponents, and opposing posed mix of conditions a scien tists, whatever their "Dante's Inferno." motives, were doing their job. To While the dino disaster movie the Alvarez group and their sup was adding some gonzo new spe porters, they said "prove itl/-and cial effects, scientists were still the game was afoot. quibbling over the constituents of the pesky K-T layer, and it was Dante's Inferno, causing the impact hypothesis to Periodicity, and the evolve. Critics pointed out that Crater while shocked quartz in the boundary layer suggested a land The ensuing rough-and-tumble Was it an impact that killed the dinosaurs? Courtesy Hansen hit, arsenic and antimony levels years of the Great Extinction Planetarium. suggested the presence of ocean-

10 Planetarian Vol. 26, No.2, 1997 floor basalt; so the impactors hypothesized sky in the popular press. had been investigated and rejected, scientists several near-simultaneous hits, both by land And again there were spoilsports. The sniffing around suspicious K-T deposits in and sea. And when others claimed the fossil extra extinction peaks were small-some not the Caribbean learned of a large, circular record showed staggered or "stepwise" much above the background noise; were structure under the north coast of the extinctions over a three-million year period, they real? Some said they were a statistical Yucatan Peninsula, centered under the town some of the impact crowd-including Walter artifact. And others suggested any periodici of Chicxulub (in sanitized Mayan, "the Alvarez-countered with a shower of comets ty merely reflected the time it took surviv devil's tail"). It had been noted as early as the instead of a single asteroid hit. ing species to rediversify sufficiently to be 1950's during oil explorations by Pemex, the Some impactors didn't like their elegant vulnerable once again to large-scale die-offs. Mexican oil company, and had single-hit theory turning into a hydra, but As for the "Death Star," some astronomers been suggested as a possible impact site in the cornet shower idea fitted in nicely with pointed out that a red dwarf in so huge and 1981, to surprisingly little attention. Now it an expansion of the impact debate that had tenuous an orbit would have been lost to the got some attention. begun a little earlier. For many years, paleon sun long ago. No Planet X was forthcoming, Scientists analyzed samples of rock taken tologists recognized five great dyings in the and the solar system was crossing the galac from Pemex drill cores of the site and report fossil record of the Phanerozoic Eon (the eon tic plane right now-where was the mass ed in 1992 that they found what appeared to of "visible life," encompassing the last 550 extinction? be glassy melt rock that they dated to 65 mil million years), when the level of ongOing And so it went. lion years old and closely matched material "background" extinctions climbed to unusu Back at the K-T, before the impact hypoth in nearby K-T deposits. The crater appeared ally high rates. These were the "mass extinc esis starting growing multiple heads, one to be the right age and the right size (180 km tions." The K-T event was the most recent; nagging question had always been "Where's wide-recent reports say maybe bigger), with there was a smaller peak at the end of the the beef?"-namely, the crater. Of course, it apparent late-Cretaceous breccia identified Triassic Period (which obviously didn't do in might have been subducted, but if not, above it that was dismissed as "fallback" and the dinosaur gene pool), and a really big one where do you hide a 200 km fossil crater? "infilling" material. Soon scientists were at the end of the Permian, when up to 95% In 1990, after several smaller candidates buzzing around Chicxulub and its environs of earth's species died out-the like honeybees around a flower closest we ever came (so far as we patch, analyzing geophysical know) to the total extinction of data, wen logs, drill cores, alleged life. ejecta blankets and tidal wave But in 1984, extinction peaks depOSits, declaring that they had started popping up allover. A sta found the "smoking gun." tistical analysis of the last 250 mil So-you had dead dinosaurs lion years by paleontologists and other expired species, a geo David Raup and Jack Sepkoski logically sharp boundary riddled revealed, they said, a number of with chemical and mineral evi smaller extinction peaks as well- dence of impact, and at a 12 in all since the Permian, which fossil crater that filled the bill. occurred periodically at a mean Surely, opposition would now interval of about 26 million years. dry up and blow away. They suggested that the cause It didn't. might be extraterrestrial; it was all some astronomers needed to get Impact as Anticlimax into the game. As any forensic pathologist is In a matter of months, three likely to tell you, a smoking gun theories had been manufactured is a very useful thing to find to account for the cyclic rains of assuming the victim died of a death. The first proposed a tiny bullet wound. And that's the companion star for the sun crux, I think, of where the Great (dubbed Nemesis) which, every 26 Extinction Debate sits today. million years, dipped into the From the beginning, the Oort cloud and dislodged a hail of impact hypothesis had two main comets to smack the earth. The tenets: first, that a big impact second theory substituted Planet occurred at the K-T boundary, X, precessing regularly into the and second, that it caused the comet swarm to produce a similar sudden and massive extinctions effect. The third cited the solar that are noted there. And accep system's habit of bobbing up and tance of the first does not auto down through the galactic plane; matically imply acceptance of when it did so, it was the gravity the second. of interstellar clouds that did the An anecdote will illustrate. In cornet-nudging. Nemesis especial 1985, Malcolm Browne of The ly was appealing to the media, as New York Times took an infor the "Death Star"; once again there Were volcanic eruptions involved in the dinosaurs' demise? mal poll at a meeting of the was flaming retribution from the Courtesy Hansen Planetarium. SOCiety of Vertebrate Paleon-

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian 11 tologists concerning the impact hypothesis; to preserve a dinosaur-and thus to be sure about his theories of dinosaur behavior. But he found 90% of the paleontologists willing when they're all gone. (Even the Alvarez if you insist, he'll take a position that I think to accept the possibility that an asteroid hit group appreciated the problem in their origi a lot of his colleagues do as wen: fine-an the earth around the end of the Cretaceous, nal iridium paper as did the authors of the asteroid or a big comet hit the earth 6S mil but he found only 4% who thought that a later comet-shower treatise. In the former in lion years ago and raised some dust. But cosmic impact was what wiped out the 1980, the Alvarez's acknowledged that a there's no solid evidence that there were any dinosaurs. Why the disparity? I think it's problem with their hypothesis was that best dinosaurs still alive then. Fossil data clearly because while physicists and geochemists evidence at that time suggested that the K-T suggest that the dinosaurs had been in and planetary scientists were pursuing one foraminifera and the dinosaurs didn't die out decline for some time, operating on an ever line of eVidence, paleontologists were look at the same time. In the latter published in shrinking number of species. At best, the ing at another: the fossil record. The two 1987, the authors simply stated that the rele rock fell on the heads of the stragglers who lines of evidence weren't jibing, and paleon vant fossil record was complex, and were already on their way out. tologists believed the fossils. I'Dinosaur fossils are too rare to determine In short, the asteroid was anticlimactic, at The difficulty of corroborating the impact whether their extinction was abrupt or grad least as far as the dinosaurs were concerned. hypothesis in the fossil record has always ual.") It's important to remember that only so been the tricky part of the whole impact Perhaps it's not so surprising, then, that much can be inferred globally, on either side business. Paleontologists had traditionally many paleontologists-especially vertebrate of the issue, from the existing fossil record recognized the great changes in life at the K paleontologists-still don't buy the impact as biologist David Archibald pOints out in his T boundary; it was in fact the abrupt disap hypothesis as the dinosaur-killer. book Dinosaur Extinction and the End of an pearance of the calcareous plankton (the Jack Horner, as I mentioned earlier, is one Era, According to Archibald, there are many limestone-makers) and the sharp demarca of those vertebrate paleontologists. Frankly, late Cretaceous sites around the world, but tion line it made in the strata that had he doesn't feel all that strongly about the very few identified end Cretaceous sites caused scientists to peg it for the boundary issue in the first place; he'd much rather talk strata that encompass, on land, the time up between the Mesozoic and to the K-T boundary. Virtually all Cenozoic in the first place. But to of these are in western North a geologist, "abrupt" can mean a America running along the million years, and estimating Canadian and U.s. Rockies, where time periods of less than 100,000 the late Cretaceous inland seaway years in the strata is doing very divided the continent and pro well. Six months? It was one vided excellent conditions for thing to say late Cretaceous fossil deposition. And only one of dinos and others died out quick these sites-the Hell Creek For ly-over thousands or maybe a mation in Montana-provides a million years. It was breathtaking really good record of vertebrate to say they were offed literally fossils across the K-T boundary overnight, in less than a year into the Tertiary. and expect the fossil record to This rather limits the view tell you it happened in June. backward, or at least reqUires (Remember that it was Walter some large assumptions. For ex Alvarez's desire to find a way to ample, some people claim that get a handle on the elapsed time North America was the dinosaurs' of the K-T transition that led to last stand, the creatures having the discovery of the iridium already disappeared from the fos anomaly and the formulation of sil record on the other continents. the impact hypothesis to begin It may be true, but it also may just with.) be an artifact of the rarity of end As in so many things in life, Cretaceous fossil records else timing is everything in the where. Paleontologists make the extinction game, and the geolog most of what they have. And ical record offers only a gross what they have so far, many of recording. them they say, gives no solid evi The state of the fossil record is dence that dinosaurs were still another problem. The reason around, in North America at least, those little limestone forami when the Big One hit. And there's nifera are used so much for dat little evidence of any sort from ing and deciphering things is any place else. because they and the marine A few paleontologists who find deposits in which they're found dino bits in early Paleocene strata are relatively plentiful. Dinosaur above the K-T boundary contend bones, on the other hand, are not. that dinosaurs may have survived Deposition and erosion regimes Sometimes extinction is a very personal thing. Albertosaurus the end of the Cretaceous, but are very different on land than and Maiasaurus encounter. Doug Henderson; courtesy most of their colleagues consider on the sea bottom, and it's hard Museum of the Rockies. the bits to have been "reworked"

12 Planetarian Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 from older ground into younger ground by the skies to clear. And if the impactors have kick off as well. All the other doomed erosive processes. In fact, Archibald reports trouble convincing some paleontologists follow along. that the highest "in-place" (not reworked) that there were dinosaurs left for the asteroid Volcanism and sea-level .. .",r .. .",,,,,i.nn dinosaur bones at sites along the Rockies are (or comet swarm) to hit, they also still have occurred around the time of the great some three meters (10 feet) below the K-T trouble convincing at least a few geologists Permian extinction, and boundary as defined by the iridium signa that there was any impact at all. Geologist the two effects may be connected ture. And while some paleontologists believe Charles Officer and Jake Page, in their book way. Geologist Vincent CourtiUot has that dinosaurs flourished right up until the The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy, posed that the connection may be end of the Cretaceous, most find decreasing say the earth did it without any help from mantle convection which may diversity of species as the K-T boundary is space. magnetic field reversal to the mix. approached, and they believe the data to be But what, finally, of the SUS,PlC:lOllS real. But what, finally, of the sus in the Yucatan? Officer/Page go so far But if the asteroid didn't do in the dino picious crater in the Yuca say that it's volcanic also. Citing a Pemex saurs, then what did? Scientists cite long of a drill core from the site, find accepted evidence of environmental tan'? Officer/Page go 50 far Cretaceous "ground" in place above changes during the end times of the Cre as to say that it's volcanic (hence no impact to gouge it out), taceous, even if it isn't as spectacular as flam also. characteristic "melt sheet" (which ing death from the sky. Pangea was pulling liquified into homogeneity by and apart then and the continents were going then solidified), and claim that the melt their separate ways; mountains were build Officer and Page are proponents of the ers noted in the drill core are volcanic ori ing and the weather was changing. There rival volcanic theory which still nips at the gin. But other geologists who contend it's an was intense volcanism creating the Deccan heels of the impact hypothesis, claiming that impact crater, looking at the same drill core Traps in India and spouting off elsewhere, all of the effects described at the K-T bound and others, say overlying Cretaceous breccia and the climate was cooling. The ocean lev ary, and the extinctions, can be accom is material that fell back and filled in. els were falling, the shallow epicontinental plished by the work of volcanoes. (They also also claim no melt sheet, but suggest that it seas were being lost, and especially critical in derive some help from sea-level regression.) may be lower down or that the site may not North America, the inland seaway was going In fact, the creation of the Deccan Traps of have an extensive one (apparently not all away. Dinosaur habitats were changing for India-extensive lava deposits that represent impact structures do). Finally, they say that the worse, there may have been added com the biggest volcanic episode since the end of the melt rocks they've seen and are petition from ascendant animal species who the Permian-have been dated to about 6S impact-melted were doing better in the new conditions, and million years ago, coinciding with the K-T Of course, the two analyses are irrec- they couldn't cope. Except, of course, for the boundary. But how could volcanism explain oncilable. Perhaps it shows what differences birds! what we find there? of perspective can do! Interestingly, a similar set of conditions is The iridium? No problem, say the volcan believed to have occurred at the end of the ists. There's little iridium in the earth's crust The Permian, when Pangea was coming together because of earth's early differentiation, but When no one theory quite seems to satis and the earth experienced the granddaddy there's plenty in the interior, and it gets out fy, maybe all of them together that's of all extinction events. And there isn't via "hot-spot" volcanoes (volcanoes created the approach of biologist Archibald, who in much evidence of meteoritic involvement by upwellings of heat from the deep mantle). his own analysis, throws at the then. Some think it's a good model for the K The Deccan Trap volcanoes were created by dinosaurs but the kitchen sink. T. a hot spot, and so is Hawaii's Kilauea, from He finds that no single theory seems able And so the debate goes. Some scientists which considerable iridium-spewing has to account for the pattern of ex have used statistical methods to claim that been detected. Because the Deccan volcan tinctions, and survivors that he sees, and so Archibald's "three-meter gap" isn't signifi ism lasted for several hundred thousand he suggests that it may an cant, and is within "sampling error," and years, it can account for not only the iridium convergence of factors to produce the sorts therefore dinosaurs romped right up to the anomaly, but the smaller enrichments and of massive yet selective extinctions perpe K-T cutoff. But while statistics allow you to peaks which have been noted on either side trated at the end of the Cretaceous. He offers argue the pOint, it doesn't prove the point; of the main spike. (Impactors explain this a hybrid scenario; parts will sound familiar only bones or other tangible evidence can feature as a diffusion of the iridium after by now, but he has an interesting wrinkle at do that. deposition.) And the quartz and spherules? the end. In the meantime, Jack Horner is going They're volcanic features created and dis Archibald opens his tale of doom several back to his preferred studies. If you want to tributed by explosive volcanism at the start miHion years before the end of the Cre impress him with the impact theory, you're of the Deccan period (It's safe to say that the taceous with that old devil sea-level regres just going to have to come up with an in impactors are not convinced.) sion. The continental shelves are place dinosaur skeleton at the K-T boundary. This is the Officer /Page scenario: first, sea exposed, and the inland seaway of North If it's sprinkled with iridium, so much the level regreSSion takes away the North Ameri America is shrinking; shallow-ocean dwellers better! can inland seaway, the habitat changes and and the dinosaurs and some of their terrestri the dinosaurs are history. Next, as the waters al compatriots are stressed. The sea lowers continue to recede, the shallow continental The Earth Did It and land bridges form, and new II'YHY\I('fr~ shelf oceans are lost, and so are the shallow Despite the apparent pervasiveness of the jostle for I iving space. water shellfish. Finally, the emissions of the impact hypothesis, alternative viewpoints As the Cretaceous Period wanes, the Deccan volcanoes create an acid rain that still flourish in the nooks and crannies of the Deccan Traps are erupting regularly, scientific world, like mammals waiting for poisons the ocean for the plankton, and they particulates into the atmosphere that cool

Vol. 26, No.2, june 1997 Planetarian 13 and dry the climate in many areas. The old duration." Formation) in terms of extinct and "''''uh:r;n,ty

habitat just isn't what it used to be and the So the reason we see so-called mass extinc groups, and analyzed how well LU.VHU. dinosaurs and others are in decline. tions, it is suggested, is because sometimes effects of the impact and marine reg:res:sio,n Then, at just the wrong moment, as if they several causal agents (impacts included) coin hypotheses jibed with the pattern of sur weren't in enough trouble already, a big cide to boost the level of extinction wen vivals and extinctions. He concluded that asteroid screams in from the stars and pocks above the normal background sudden cooling, acid rain, and global wildfire into what will become the Yucatan Penin As David Raup has written: "Extinction is didn't match the pattern very well, but that sula It's the last straw. Debris blasts into the evidently a combination of bad genes and habitat fragmentation and COmlJetlUon air, darkness descends and interrupts photo bad luck." And he favors bad luck. from land bridge invasions of foreign synthesis for a while, and the species already (presumed effects of sea-level drops) seemed not doing well call it an era Those that had The Biological Approach to match the pattern better. been doing all right muddle through and In the ongoing extinction debates, some Bakker thinks analysis needs to take a dis inherit the earth. impact theory critics remain unrepentant tinctly biological bent if we are ever to Furthermore, Archibald postulates, mid including paleontologist Robert Bakker. He divine the answers. He suggests scientists latitude environments and places near the rejected an asteroidal end to the dinosaurs in give the problem for a while to wildlife man crash site, like North America, fared worse his 1986 book The Dinosaur Heresies, and in a agers and zookeepers, who know the sorts of than higher latitudes. Fossil plant studies recent telephone conversation, he indicated problems living animals face-things like from Rocky Mountain sites suggest rather his opinion is even stronger today. competition from invaders, disease, and abrupt plant die-offs followed by a brief AIl of the important primary data is being other problems-and who can offer insight enrichmen t of ferns (ferns are known to "swept under the rug," he contends, and the into what devastates animal ...,vlJU...... ~AV .. A .. opportunistically settle areas where the vege only way to really understand what hap today. tation has been devastated). But higher lati pened during the complex events of the late Why not? Everyone else has .... ""'· ... "'1nlu tudes don't show the same pattern. He cites Cretaceous is to pay more attention to not taken their shot. It reminds one of the Sidney recent research on marine strata from the only who.died, but who survived-and why. Harris cartoon (as related in Richard Monas Arctic and Antarctic, as well as fossil plant For example, with all acid rain allegedly rav tersky's 1992 piece in Science News) of the studies from Russia, which seem to indicate aging the landscape, he asks, how is it that solitary man standing in front of the that plant and animal life at higher latitudes the frogs (currently under stress from man dinosaur exhibit at a museum. The caption: show lower and more gradual rates of extinc made pollution) could have survived? He liT. Radfield Burke, chemist, is the only per tion across the K-T boundary. He infers from advocates that scientists need to start con son in all of science who does not have a the this that the effects of an asteroid hit were structing "victim profiles" to help sort out ory about the extinction of the dinosaurs." less toward the poles, and that impact effects the damage and its direct causes. were perhaps more regional than previously In fact, biologist Archibald is aiming much Mixing it Up allowed. of his analysis of the fossil record in that Paleontologist David Raup has written Archibald is willing to include the impact direction. In his recent book, he organized "science is basically an adversarial I hypothesis as part of his scenario, but he the fossil vertebrate fauna of the end think the Great Extinction Debate is a makes it clear that he thinks the primacy of Cretaceous (as represented in the Hen Creek example. impacts in causing mass Both Raup (in The extinctions has been Nemesis Affair, 1986) and overstated, demonstrat Officer/Page (in The Great ed by the lack of evi Dinosaur Extinction Con dence for one during troversy, 1996) offer some the big end-Permian in terestmg perspectives on die-off. They contribute the process of science from in some cases, he opposite sides of the implies, but they don't impact controversy. work alone. Officer/Page especially Scientist Antoni weave a juicy tale of ran Hoffman stated a con cor, politicS, bias, and cordant view in 1989: creeping political correct "Perhaps ... mass ex ness that they claim has tinctions are not the pervaded the issue. The sci biotic consequences of entific method (observe, any single phenome hypothesize, test, reject/re non of one or another vise/accept) sounds objec sort, but rather rare tive and civilized in theo incidences of more ry, and most of the time, it than one major change probably is. But ultimate in the physical environ ly, science is a human ment accidentally endeavor-and it shows. I cl umped together with think the extinction con in relatively short in troversy is as fascinating tervals of geologic time, The "Dissolute Living" Theory of extinction. Courtesy Hansen Planetarium.. for what it reveals about say 2-4 million years in science and scientists as

14 Planetarlan Vol. 26, No.2, 1997 for the light it may ultimately shed on the but virtually aU specialists in impacts and that space rocks have ,...... ,.·!-"';,"Iu bumptious history of life on earth. earth-croSSing objects support it-and that many times in the past, but For example, consider the 41pecking order" everybody chose sides at the start and er and show no evidence of ...... '...... uF. among the sciences that some say clearly almost no one has switched sides during the extinctions. And some add that exists. At the top are the theoreticians and course of the debate. daddy end-Permian extinction event experimentalists: mathematicians and physi It seems that in the clash of sciences, dif to have no at cists. Next come astronomers and chemists. fering mindsets, methods of appraisal, and sists of several stages of extinction Farther down are the geologists and paleono ways of doing science have had as much to eral million years. tologists, with biologists at the bottom. It do with the Great Extinction Debate as the A recent & 'T'nlm·,·" ... n can be a status thing (some say a spectrum evidence presented on both sides. And it has from "big money and flashy machines" to been a clash-of the physics of impact versus correlation between crzLterlng the trench workers), and it can come into the interpretation of the fossil record, of the mass extinctions of the past. But the Df()bll~m play when the disciplines meet. new catastrophism versus the established is coming up with a mechanism. Museum of the Rockies geologist Christo uniformitarianism, of what gets published in Nemesis hypothesis has suffered pher Hill agrees with the general rankings, journals, and what gets reported in the press. than a decade of non-discovery; astronomers and he believes that it can be deciphered in The clash of ideas continues, as scientists find less and less reason to invoke a X terms of how the diSciplines work. The theo still mix it up on the extinction question, to account for small anlJm.all'eS reticians deal with fewer variables which struggling toward ultimate truth. Geologists in the orbitings of Uranus and NelPtune; they can control. Geologists and biologists, continue to quantify the Chicxulub struc we're still in the middle of the on the other hand, deal with a very large ture as an impact site, while colleagues keep with no hail of comets hurled number of variables in their work which them honest with studies of their own con douds.

they cannot control. Officer/page character tending that some of the supposed tsunami As for dinosaur David r'''_lUUU'.U ize it Similarly: the physicist can build a and ejecta deposits claimed for it are sedi cites recent reports from New Mexico claim machine or devise an experiment to test a ments laid down over longer periods of time. ing a hadrosaur footprint within half a meter hypothesis, and the experiment can be Some of the volcanists are conceding that (15 inches) of the K-T boundary; the repeated by others to verify the result. The evidence for a monster K-T impact (crater, cance on the time period represent- geologist, on the other hand, works with iridium, shocked minerals) has become com ed by that 15 but it suggests incomplete data from an experiment which pelling, and are willing to give the asteroid dinosaurs are closer to the iridium. cannot be repeated, for which a consensus of its due. But they also cite one of the original However, Archibald also mentions interpretation must be reached And geologi impact authors (Asaro) as declaring that the from a new end-Cretaceous site cal consensus bears little resemblance to a K-T signature is unique in the Phanerozoic vated in China that claims dinosaur finds proof in physics. record, and if the Chicxulub crater does turn above the K -T D011nc:1ary; William Glen, in his report in SpedaJ Paper out to be 300 km (180 miles) in diameter, it to be SU1)stlmtiated, 307: The Cretaceous-Tertiary Event and Other may represent a once-in-a-biUion year event. dinosaur and impact theories if Catastrophes in Earth History (1996), who has This leaves them free to consider volcanic prove out? studied the extinction debates for some causes for other extinction events in the Meanwhile, a recent statistical years, also seems to agree. He points out that past, for which there are interesting correla tends that 100% mortali ty of an the varied science disciplines involved in tions. And the Deccan Traps were still erupt population density of end-Cretaceous extinction theory bring very different train ing 65 million years ago, they remind US; the dinosaurs wouldn't yield to

ing, mindsets, and paradigms to the discus asteroid simp! y homed in on an extinction AC ...... ",."" bone beds. an sion, and that this accounts for much of the event already underway. absence of K-T bone beds doesn't mean the character of the debate. This makes it a little But scientist David Rampino is not so dinosaurs weren't there. So show us one easier to understand perhaps, the physicist quick to give up the possibility of other dinosaur, say the vertebrate paJ:eont()lOI~ist:s; who says "Iridium, shocked quartz, mass impact-caused extinction events, .... A,,'.u.u.5 without some physical P'uirlAt'lrp extinction-cosmic impact; next problem," evidence (albeit sketchy) for small iridium smoke and mirrors. And so it goes, "trl'HTICrli"',(T while the geologist replies "Hey-have you toward the light ... seen how complex the fossil record is?" It seems that in the clash As an anecdotal (and non-scientific) exper sciences. differing mindsets, or iment, I talked to some of the geologists, Imml:;~-(lS in life and mass extinctions- is paleontologists, and physicists on my uni methods of appraisal. and everything, and this summer, our museum versity campus to get their views. Even ways of doing science have hit it on the nose. While movie crowds are though some (not all) of the geologists felt had as much to do with the UU'LHU'/S to the grisly habits of 20th century that a majority of the people in their disci Great Extinction Debate as dinosaurs, we'll be a brand new pline now supported the impact hypothesis, exhibit called liT-rex on Trial." will be not one of them did personally; they "didn't the evidence presented on able to come and see a full-sized cast of the buy it" or felt the evidence wasn't yet suffi both sides. And it has been skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex uses cient to convince them. Not unexpectedly, a clash ... the real bones any more-too valuable) that the physicists all supported the theory. was dug up in central Montana where it feB. Glen says it's the subdisciplines where the They11 also be able to see a skeletal of a really interesting indicators are. For example, jurassic Allosaurus retrieved from the his studies show that vertebrate paleontolo anomalies, shocked minerals, and possibly of Wyoming, and a to gists are nearly unanimous in their opposi associated craters coinCiding with some those nightmarish be tion to impact as the extinction mechanism, other extinctions. Respondents acknowledge on view in theaters and np,.h"n"

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian in our dreams. things, the dinosaurs? There is overwhelm Mass Extinction? An People will also be able to consider evi ing evidence that the answer to the first Impact. Scientific American, dence for Jack Homer's latest controversial question is yes. The answer to the second is Archibald, J. D. 1996. Dinosaur Ext'incitton idea: that T-rex, fierce and beloved icon of all not so clear. I don 't think it's sufficient for the End ofan Era: What the Fossils the Calvins of the world, may have been the physicist to calculate effects of impact York: Columbia University Press. more scavenger than predator. Positively and then assume the consequences; it's fair Bakker, R. 1986. The Dinosaur Heresies: New scandalous. But like many new hypotheses to expect that the consequences must be Theories the (including the impact theory), it may also confirmed in the geological record, and we Dinosaurs and their Extinction. New just be true. We don't know yet, because the must give geologists and paleontologists Zebra Books. process of science hasn't yet run it's course. time to puzzle it all out. CourtiUot, V. 1990. What Caused We'll see if consensus will ultimately emerge, There are legitimate questions still to be Extinction? A Volcanic 1-4 .." ..... 1-'i.-...... "'rj,,,.-.f'if'ir either relegating the notion to a footnote, or asked Where the dinosaurs still alive for an American, 263, 4:85-92. placing it into the paleontological paradigm impact? Did all affected species die together Glen, W. 1996. Observations on that helps us to understand those glorious or in stages? Who died and who survived Extinction Debates. The beasts of another age. The same is true of the and why? What effects actuaH y occurred Tertiary Event and Other impact hypothesis. and were they global? Does the North Earth Paper 307. .uu,.uu.~'" We in the Taylor Planetarium will also be American end-Cretaceous record represent CO: The of America. hopping on the dinosaur bandwagon this the global situation? Was more that one Hut, P., W. Alvarez, et al. Comet Showers a summer. We'll be dusting off and running causal agent involved? Is the extinction Cause of Mass Extinctions. Nature, 329:118- one of our most popular programs, "The record really periodic, and if so, what is the 126. Dinosaur Chronicles," which does something cause? In a culture of pop science where a Kerr, R. 1992. that Jack asked us to do when we produced it suspicious rock turns overnight into life on Extinction. several years ago: show how dinosaurs fit Mars, we have an opportunity to delve a lit Lucas, S. 1997. Dinosaurs: The into the scheme of Hfe on an evolving earth tle deeper, to offer a little more: a peek at the Dubuque, IA: Wm C. Brown Publishers. MacDougaU, J. D. 1996. A Short The impact hypothesis asks two questions. Did a major impact Planet Earth. New York: Sons. occur at the end of the Cretaceous? And did it kill, among other Monastersky, R 1992. things, the dinosaurs? There is overwhelming evidence that the Science News, 141, 4:56-58. answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is Monasterksy, R. 1992. the Dead. not so clear. Science News, 141, 5:72-75. Monastersky, R. 1997. The Call of Catastrophes. Science News, 151, 9:S20. As I've said, he's more interested in how they way science works. Morell, V.1993. How Lethal Was the K-T lived than how they died. Our paradigms are shifting, too-from Impact? Science, 261:1518-1519. Do we blow them up at the end in a big product to process. It's not enough just to Officer, J. 1996. The Great UU1U~I:.wr asteroid impact? You bet; we blow 'em up offer answers anymore; we need to present Extinction good Do we qualify the theory when we pre the information and to encourage more criti sent it? Yup. And when we're done, we note cal analysis. I think it's good science educa Raup, D. 1986. The Nemesis that there are other opinions, and that the tion to at least acknowledge that we still the Death Dinosaurs and the debate continues. have things to learn. Science. New York: W. W. Norton &: Why? Because it's the truth. To me, the Great Extinction Debate resem Company. Should we still qualify our presentations bles a classic dialectic process. We D. 1990. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad of the impact hypothesis? I think so. As I dis with thesis. the proposition in the form of Luck? New York: W. W. Norton &: covered in my own investigations (and as I the impact hypothesis. Presently, we have Company. hope I've illustrated), there's a lot more dis antithesis. using conflict and opposition to G., D. J,;,;,c'tn"",I;'u cussion and debate going on than one might explore the proposition. With luck, we're realize. And! don't think it can all be dis heading for synthesis, where conflicts will be and Other Catastrophes in Earth missed as a few old fogies clinging stubborn reconciled into a higher stage of truth That Special Paper 307. CO: The ly to a dying precept. Consider Horner and truth will be a more profound perspective of America. Bakker, for example, and their proclivity for and understanding of the history of Hfe on C. et a1. 1992. Coeval Ar-40/Ar-39 VOicing controversial theories-Horner on earth of 65.0 Million Years dinosaur social behavior, warm-bloodedness, What really killed the dinosaurs? I think Chicxulub Crater Melt Rock and and T-rex's dining habits, Bakker on warm we're still finding out. And that's the joy Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Tektites. bloodedness, birds as dinosaurs, and other and the process-of science. Science, 257:954-958. "heresies." Neither ascribes to the impact Now go enjoy those Spielbergosauruses ... Turco, R., O. Toon, T. Pollack, C. hypothesis, but I don't think a convincing Sagan. 1984. The Climatic Effects of argument can be made that either is unre References Nuclear War. Scientific American, 251, 2:33- ceptive to new ideas. As Bakker has written, Alvarez, L., W. Alvarez, F. Asaro and H. 43. "I champion heresies only if they fit the facts Michel. 1980. Extraterrestrial Cause for the Ward, PD. 1992. On Methuselah's Trail: better than orthodoxy." Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction. Science, fOSSils and the Great Extinctions. New York The impact hypothesis asks two questions. 208:1095-108. W. H. Freeman and Company. Did a major impact occur at the end of the Alvarez, W., F. Asaro. 1990. What Caused the Cretaceous? And did it kill, among other

16 Planetarian Vol. 4& 4& through Fourth Place as checks in I I for $500, and $100 .. "",,'nor'tinal u F unda Only sCripts that have not been submitted, and have not been pulJHslhed 1 S ript ont where, may be submitted. Each entry st be accompanied a release form below) assigning the to the Alan Davenport publication in the Planetarian and mClUSlon in the LP S. Bank. Maynard F. Jordan Planetarium The Eugenides contest was last C0I1dtlCt University of Maine ed in 1989. The First and Second Place that year, were submitted Orono, Maine 04469-5781 the Taylor Planetarium, and Kris [email protected] the Sudekum Planetarium. I am see the return of the competition and wish The International Planetarium Society in accordance with the criteria listed in the to thank the LP.S. council, Council is pleased to announce a script-writ rules below. poulos of the Eugenides Planetarium, and ing contest (outlined below) for 1997 with All submissions are welcome, beginning Mr. Nicos Vernicos-Eugenides, for awards, funded by the Eugenides Founda immediately, and must be received by me bringing this opportunity to the tion, to be given at the 1998 IPS conference. (five copies of each entry) by December 31, bership. Winners need not be present to accept 1997. Four scripts will be selected to receive Read the rules carefully, select your best awards. This competition is open to all mem award distinction in this competition for the work, one release form, bers of I.P.S., and limited to one entry per "Most Creative Public Show Script". Four your finest work to IPS r.:ul~e:r.na!:s member. I have been appointed the coordi prizes, made possible by the generous sup Contest, C/O Alan Davenport, nator of the contest for which three judges port of the Eugenides Foundation in Athens, tarium, 5781 Wingate Hall, will be selected to evaluate each submission Greece, will be awarded for First Place Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5781

(Script contest rules begin on the nextpage)

IPS'98 UPDATE Undine Concannon, London Planetarium, UK

Full details about this conference will be included in the September issue, which will have a page section for register your preliminary booking. I know it's still a long way off, but there are certain difficulties which will be much easier solve if we have an early indication of how many people to expect.

Meanwhile, if you have read of the vast acres of space which we have apparently booked at the "-JVI ...... ,I.4 ....i'", ...... 1."',J'V1.1.Jl.:>, believe all of it! They can run three big conferences at once, but we have only booked a third of the total space, which is adequate for our purposes! Space for vendors WILL be limited, and the total of delegates will also be limited to 500. We

shall take bookings in strict rotation, so it's in your interest to register your intention to come as soon as iJV.:l,JIAIJA\.. September! We are still planning to visit Greenwich, by boat down the Thames, to see the Old Royal Observatory; in addition the National Maritime Museum and 19th century tea clipper, Cutty Sark, are also options for you during the afternoon. A whole day trip to the ancient stone circle of Avebury, a delightful 18th century house, and perhaps Salisbury Cathedral as will end in an evening at Stonehenge, with refreshments. Our involvement with Stonehenge has taken an twist. Its own ers, English Heritage, have applied to the Millenium Fund for a large grant to access, build a replica and extend the visi tor centre. This won't happen before 1998, but if their grant application is successful it will be our parent company, Mme. Tussaud's who will design the new areas. They are already planning to build a planetarium there (well, a sort-of so as to demonstrate the importance of midsummer solstice to the site. This won't, however, mean we can all get in free! The Post Conference tour is now taking its final shape. The first day will be a visit to Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory and Science Centre, with accommodation and dinner at Manchester University. We will then fly direct to Dublin which will be our base for the following four days. Hotel accommodation there is more expensive than London (Dublin is such a popular tourist destination now!) so we are planning for most people to stay at Trinity College, which, apart from being myoId is a delightful place, and cheap! The rooms are small, but adequate, and most have their own shower. For those who want the com fort of a hotel, we will arrange 3* accommodation - anything above this will take the cost over the moon! But it will be essential to book our accommodation before the end of the year, in order to secure enough rooms at the right We can't this unless we know what the numbers will be. If there is any chance that you want to come on this tour please let us know mid- December.

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian 17 THE EUGENIDES FOUNDATION SCRIPT AWARDS

Outline

I. General

A. In recognition of individual excellence in public planetarium show production. hold a continuous biennial contest sponsored by the Eugenides Foundation, under the category of Most Creative Public Show Script.

B. Any currently-enrolled IPS member may participate by following the rules below. C. Winners shall be recognized in The Planetarian and at the IPS conference, awarded a certificate indicating their selection.

D. The Society retains the right to publish copies of any and or all entries in I'VUJLU ...... The Planetarian, and/or include any and all scripts in an archive of scripts for Society members.

II. Contest Rules and Procedures

A. Any IPS member may submit up to three different entries in contest, have not been previously submitted or published elsewhere.

B. Each contestant shall submit five copies of each entry to the Script Section "''-'''1'''''' one copy for the Eugenides Foundation's files, one copy for the IPS files, and one copy each of the three referees.

C. The Script Section Editor shall choose, from the list of IPS Fellows, three referees to consider each coded entry, based on a set of general and specific criteria (below). The names and institutions of the authors will be kept anonymous final decisions have been made and announced.

D. The opinions of the three referees shall be quantified and averaged

Editor, who shall then make his/her recommendation to ...... v .... u'.... JLJL. " ...... ,U.U" ... JL .... E, opinions.

E. Entries are to be submitted between July 1 and December 31 of the non-conference (odd- numbered) years. Winners of that contest shall then be recognized the awards ceremonies at the following IPS conference.

F. All scripts submitted shall conform to the following generalized format: 1. Title, Author, Institution, Address, Telephone at the top of the first page, or on a separate title page. 2 . Text in English, typed, doubled-spaced, pages numbered (computer printout acceptable). 3. Text on right hand side of pages; corresponding visuals appear on the left side. numbers optional. 4. Recommended visuals shall include slides, panoramas, special effects, plus aPlJropnate star instrument functions/motions.

18 Planetarian Vol. 5. Suggested not more than 20-30 pages; ~nf"'\1I"TA1"

6. A completed release form must accompany each "' .... '.H.U ...... ,y

III. Evaluative "-' ... A ...... , ...... A. For each of the 20 criteria below. assign a numeric value as follows: 1. Five for superior (or strongly agree) 2. Four for above average (or agree) 3. Three for average (or neutral) 4. Two for below average (or disagree) 5. One for Inferior (or strongly disagree)

B. Each referee shall respond to the following: 1. General Evaluative Criteria a) The program's purpose/goals are clear. b) The overall program achieves the perceived purpose c) The program's structure enhances the purpose/goals

d) The style and technique of the program enhances its iJn'''nr..CAI f) Overall originality and creativity are

2. Specific Evaluation Criteria: a) Information (Cognitive) Criteria 1. Contents are clear. 2. Repetition is used for clarity or Previous recall. 3. Perceptual capacity of the viewer is respected. (Example: no "Information overload" occurs.)

4. Potential "noise" or confusion is overcome by emphasis. or "' ...... VJ.ULU -(~nosen examples. 5 The continuity of ideas expressed is readily aot>anmt. b) Entertainment Functions (Predictable Structure 1. Program features an attention-grabbing, or cO]ltem1=~latlve ho.'...... ·.. " ...... 2. Program properly uses dramatic tension/sense elements to maintain interest. 3. Perceived tone of address is positive (leading, not down to" the aUlueIlce

4. Examples/amount of humor used are carefully ...,AHJLI"-·U (not cliches, stereotypes, or negative prejudices).

5. Mood/feeling created by the show is such that aU(l1ell1Ce U.A...,AUU"'A", may wish to explore topic(s) further on their own.

c) Persuasion Functions (Arguments and Hv."\l1r·11" 'r...... r'.T "-''U'Hv.H.ALJ'.lUAh' 1. Program indicates that the writer is competent. 2. Style of the argument puts the audience into a receptive mood. 3. Organization of the argument is clear, logical, and conclusive. 4. Argument is appropriate to the intended audience.

IV. Awards CategoriesNalues A. First Place - $500.00 (USD) B. Second Place - $250.00 (USD) C. Third Place - $150.00 (USD) D. Fourth Place - $100.00 (USD)

Vol. No.2, june 1997 Planetarian ASSIGNMENT AND RELEASE

INTERNATIONAL PLANETARIUM SOCIETY EUGENIDES SCRIPT CONTEST ENTRY

[Complete one form and include with each script submitted. Deadline: December 31, 1997]

Submission date: ------The undersigned does hereby assign and release unto the International Planetarium Society (IPS), the script entitled , and permits the use of content of script in whole or in part in connection with planetarium programs of all kinds.

The undersigned acknowledges that the script assigned here by may be included within any script bank maintained by IPS, that IPS may publish the script in the Society journal, The Planetarian, that IPS may maintain scripts for distribution to its members on magnetic media and in hard copy form, and that scripts assigned to IPS may be screened by a committee to control duplication of materials and to eliminate any known proprietary material.

The undersigned does hereby represent unto IPS that this assignment and release is not contrary to any copyright registration or other registration relating to copyright protection with respect to the script; that this assignment and release is not in conflict with any other agreement executed by the undersigned; and that the undersigned will, to the extent reasonably necessary, execute such further assurances of title as may be necessary and defend the same.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned has executed this assignment and release as of the date first above written.

SUBMITTEDBy: ______(Signature)

PRINT NAME ______TITLE: ______

ORGANIZATION~LANETAFUUM ______

ADDRESS: ______(City, State)

WITNESS:(Signature) ______

PRINT NAME ------Title: ------

20 Planetarian Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Association Museum accreditation for More head as a non-collecting facility and J a nee red the accreditation program for many • other non-collecting museums .. ,,_.UUIl.'" I planetariums and science centers. I instrumental in the of gifts from the Morehead Foundation Zeiss Model VI Planetarium ...... ,'"\;",rt,-,,· Shapiro star theater automation eql~Hpm€~nt. As a neW director at ... or.o~rlI Planetarium Director Planetarium, I met in 1974 #3480 Morehead Planetarium Directors Conference in University of North Carolina He made me feel right at home among the Big Dome group and was an easy person to Chapel Hill, North Carolina with whom to talk. He did take the fact that he was the senior Anthony (Tony) F. Jenzano, long time time at Morehead than any other astronaut. director in the United States, but it was not director of the Morehead Planetarium at the The first astronauts would usually come in an III am above you" pride. Tony was outgo University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, twos or threes with security and anonymity ing and interested in the plane1:arium passed away Saturday, March 22,1997. the word of the day. Often, those astronauts, sion as a whole. Five years later, as two of the Tony trained as an electrician in the when in town, would go rest and relax out of directors of planetariums on armed forces and was hired as a technician at the limelight at Tony's home. When More ty campuses, he and I worked the Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia In 1949, head celebrated its 40th birthday in 1989, the consultants in Boulder, Colorado. when Dr. Roy K. Marshall came to Chapel six remaining Mercury astronauts (now Tony retired from Morehead Planetarium Hill to be Morehead's first Director, he down to five) came to help celebrate. Clearly and the University of North Carolina in 1981. brought Tony, described as a mechanical one of the highlights to them was the oppor He had set a high standard to follow. I was genius by Marshall, with him. Marshall left tunity to meet with Tony again and to told when I came to Chapel Hill in 1982, that less than two years later and Tony became thank him not only for the training they UNC only hired planetarium directors every manager of the Planetarium, with the title received, but the very special accommoda thirty years. Tony continued to live in changed a decade later to Director. tions Tony and his wife, Jay, gave them in Chapel Hill and stayed involved with In addition to overseeing the Morehead their home and in their hearts. tarium for a number of years afterwards in Planetariums growth into a mature and Tony also led the battle to gain American connection with the Zeiss company. prominent faCility, Tony laid claim to a number of special achievements. More head Planetarium was the first planetarium to produce an annual star theater presentation about possible astro nomical explanations for the Star of Beth lehem. Tony also had the foresight to con vince NASA in its early days, that Morehead would be an ideal place to train astronauts in celestial navigation. Every Mercury, Gem ini, and all but one Apollo astronaut re ceived celestial naviga tion training at the Morehead Planetari um, in addition to the Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz (American), and a number of the early Space Shuttle astro nauts. Indeed, Neil Armstrong spent more

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian SHOW KITS AVAILABLE FROM THE

A fun, friendly and exploration of the sky! Designed especially through 1st graders, this is an ideal first primary school audiences. Your presenter program blending live interaction

with nrC',rnr'"rrinn segments. - 20 / 1 08 slides / $450

the possibility of life elsewhere in our galaxy and throughout the universe. - Production Book with annotated - 31 minutes / 368 slides / $350 visual list, special effects notes, educational materials Soundtrack on cassette, Journey into the future from a space station out to the stars. Dolby B, ( or dbx -38 minutes /321 slides / $350 ~ Slides

WORLDS WONDER* Distribution, Davis rlOnEltarlllrn Investigate some of the exciting discoveries made about Maryland Science the worlds in our Solar System. 601 Light Street -25 minutes / 314 slides / $350 Baltimore,

* Explore our planet from its violent birth to today and see how its wealth of resources make life possible. Find out how we can better preserve and enjoy the future of the world. - 25 minutes / 250 slides / $350

the Westinghouse Electric Corporation

SCIENCE

Penn State In-Service Workshops in

Penn State is offering a one-week, graduate-level workshop titled "Stars and Planets for Science Teachers" in the sun]m~~r 1997 for middle-school and high-school teachers who want to bring modern astronomy into their classrooms. understanding of the physical laws governing the world around us is nourished by studies of such planets, exploding stars, and the search for alien life," says Eric Feige1son, professor of astronomy and at Penn and organizer of the workshop

The workshop will use basic concepts of physics to explain the current understanding of stars and p ...... u ... ~..... include lectures and discussions accompanied by examination of multimedia and World Wide Web mc:ltelrials, computer- based hands-on laboratories, nighttime and planetarium observing, and guest pH!:seJ[Hi:llUl.Hl!S astronomers, science-education faculty, and master teachers. Participants will receive Penn State credit. The one-week workshop will take place fromJtme 23 to June 27, 1997, at Penn State's University Park campus. Residence campus is expected from Sunday evening to Friday. The workshop is intended for middle-school and high-school teachers of Earth science, physics; or Pennsylvania or other states. Financial aid for text books, travel, and local costs is available. For more information, contact Penn State Inservice Workshops in Astronomy, Department of Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, or contact the program Dr. Eric FelgeJlSOltl, 814-865-0162 [email protected] (e-mail), or http://www.astro.psu.edu/outreach/psiwa (WorId Wide Web).

STARLA nr.:,t;oa II III III The Portable n

Many of you, in planetariums worldwide, already know how easy it is to incorporate a STARLAB into your existing planetarium programs. Because of its versatility, portability, ease-of-use, and cost-effectiveness, the STARLAB is considered an invaluable and exciting multicultural tool for education. STARLAB can be used conjunction with a fixed planetarium for: .. school outreach • community outreach .. training programs .. hands-on education • multicultural education • public relations

4» workshops • teacher training

4» special events • fundraising

Call or write information about the STARLAB Portable Planetarium.

Learning Technologies, Inc., 40 Cameron A.ve., Somerville, MA. 02144 Phone 800.. 537.. 8703 or 617... 628 .. 1459 .. Fax: 617 ... 628 ... 8606 ..

24 Planetarian Vol. It to extragalactic jets, and finally deals with VI cosmology and the role dark matter plays in the evolution of the universe. This book is written for anyone interested in astro April S. Whitt physics, and the authors are faithful to what at the most conceptual yet gnlptucru Fernbank Science Center astrophysics is really about, a marriage the very basic nature of between astronomy and physics. influence at many 156 Heaton Park Drive NE The authors manage to keep the reader complexity which results. Atlanta, GA 30307 engaged by describing the various astronom ical phenomena that exist, and at the same [email protected] time, they introduce the reader to the impor tant physics (explained with a minimum of mathematical equations) without which one Press, New York; 1996; ISBN 0- Whether you're welcoming winter or cel could not understand the astronomy. The 19-510105-7; 237 ebrating summer this solstice, take some theme here, of course, is how the law of grav bound,$25. time to escape into a book. Here are some of ity underlies all the astrophysics being the publisher's latest offerings. The one explained in this review. More specifically, it Reviewed by John Mosley, Griffith Observa comet book entry I received in response to seeks to explain the implications of black tory, Los Angeles, California, USA. last column's request is here (thank you, hole theory as fundamental physics where John), and you'll also find something for just classical gravitation breaks down and We all do IJHlLl".. LU1H,UU shows with titles about every reader out there: young or old, notions of space and time are tested. such as "Cosmic Impact/' "When Worlds beginner or expert. It is a book of concepts, and although it Collide," liThe Death of the Dinosaurs," and Thank you also to our reviewers for this covers many phenomena, from stellar to so on. This is where the sky meets the earth - issue: Robert Ballou, Kevin R Grazier, Robert galactic evolution, the central idea is the often with a bang. It's a natural for a Hicks, Francine Jackson, John Mosley, Mike same, namely that a single physical law, public planetarium show, so a new D. Reynolds, Alberto Sadun and April Whitt. gravity, is responsible for a remarkable array book that summarizes the latest information of structure throughout the universe, and on cosmic impacts is always a welcome addi will be the determinant of its future dynam tion to our library. Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black ics. Dr. Verschuur reviews what is known Holes in the Un iverse, by The authors are unafraid of discussing today (or when it was written in 1995) about Mitchell Begelman and Martin some of the more exotic phenomena and comet and asteroid impacts. The book was Rees, Scientific American theories in this field For example, they tell inspired in part by a collaborative effort to Library, W. H. Freeman and us that mini-black holes may have once produce a show on impacts at the Hansen Company, 41 Madison Avenue, existed and that hibernating stellar black Planetarium in 1991. Dr. Verschuur for New York, NY, 1996, ISBN 0- holes may currently be lurking throughout mer planetarium director and he has 7187-5074-0, $32.95 our galaxy. They also discuss efforts to dis for the dramatic. You could <>","r"thiinrr cover the latter. They describe the mounting you need to write a successful pl(mE~tal~iu:m Reviewed by Alberto Sad un, Agnes Scott evidence of hibernating supermassive black show from this one source (but a little fact College, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. holes that reside in the centers of otherwise checking would not hurt). normal and nearby galaxies and even within The book begins with a review of KIT This book, a popular text on the role of our very own Milky Way. "event" and the evidence that convinces us gravity throughout the universe, is an excel They do an excellent job of bridging the of what happened to the earth and to lent introduction to some of the most inter gap of enormous scales, such as making the things. Especially interesting is his recount esting and important scientific issues in plaUSible connection between stellar black ing of the long story of the recognition of astrophysics today. These two authors, both holes and their jets and their counterparts, the Chicxulub impact site. I hadn't realized of them well renowned and highly respect active galactic nuclei and their jets. Through that the crater was identified as an ed, offer an overview of how graVity influ their historical presentation, they open up structure and mapped well before Alvarez' ences the evolution and dynamics of astro the universe for us by showing it to us at famous discovery of Iridium in but nomical phenomena on all scales, from stars other wavelengths, particularly in X-rays. that it took decades for the news to filter to galaxies, and even to the evolution of the Their balance between theory and obser into the collective consciousness of the universe itself. It is a book written with vation is excellent. Each is needed to astronomical A later chapter humor as well as inSight, and it gives an describe the phenomena under discussion. dramatically describes, hl()W·-h'\r-nl excellent historical treatment of the subject, The descriptions of various objects and pro environmental horrors produced but then continues with present issues in the cesses encountered depend both on how event. field, as well as future, more speculative pos they are observed as well as the physics I especially enjoyed Dr. Verschuur's histo sibilities. behind those processes. ry of the idea that large objects the It begins as a general introduction to our Gravity's Fatal Attraction is a thoroughly earth. He begins at a time when such argu galaxy and then moves to cosmology. It rigorous introduction to gravitational astro ments were theologically based (would God starts with the astrophysics of ordinary stars, physics, aimed at the college level for the permit such a disaster to happen?) and proceeds with the development of stel non-major in astronomy. In its 246 pages Velikovsky (who soured the lar black holes. Then, the subject expands to there are excellent plates and illustrations to entire astronomical on even the galactic nuclei and the supermassive black guide the reader, and pink pages as math possibility of cosmic impacts) and to the pre holes purported to be contained in active panels for optional use, similar to what one sent (where the only hold-outs are galactiC nuclei such as quasars. It moves on

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian entrenched paleontologists; see pages 7-16 of discovered were we to a serious when spe~akilng to the this issue). However, I believe Verschuur is search. not ma:lormg far too sympathetic to the strange ideas of I did not read critically for numerical Victor Clube and William Napier, who try to errors, but two caught my eye. The mete Hon, "What evidence do connect disappearances of ancient civiliza orite that hit Mrs. Hodges in 1954 weighed 4 of this stuff is true?" tions with cosmic disasters. They have a long kg, not 19 kg - which probably would have us with an ex(:ellient "disastrous" history. Apparently the range of killed her (p. 39), and my sources the place for further thought that has overly conservative energy of the explOSion that produced dudes with, astronomers at one end and VeHkovsky at Meteor Crater at closer to 5-10 megatons another is really a continuum, and Clube than "50 megatons" and "in 100 megaton and Napier are somewhere along it. I learned range" quoted on pages 41 and 42. My fear is (page 102) that "Much of the zodiacal dust that other such errors exist. Also, the name that is present now may be the leftovers and subject indices are completely inade from the breakup of a large comet around quate. 3000 BC" - something I will want to verify The proverbial bottom line? This book is book as a valuable addition to the before accepting! essential reading for planetarians and aU any or astronomy edllcator. Another chapter provides a good descrip popularizers of astronomy. If you don't have tion of the work done by Spacewatch and an a copy, go get one now. Not only is it weH account of recent near misses by near-earth written and fun to read, you will find it an asteroids. They seem to be in the news regu extremely useful reference on a topic larly these days. tant to aU of us. Verschuur spends substantial time dis cussing the threat posed by tsunamis, which I especially enjoyed because I believe they Cosmology, 3rd ed. by Michael are the greatest threat posed by asteroid Rowan-Robinson. Oxford Uni Reviewed by Kevin R Grazier, Griffith impacts. Perhaps this interest is partially per versity Press, 198 Madison vatory, Los CA and Jet Prc)plllsion sonal- I live in the coastal community of Los Avenue, New York, NY 10016, Lalxn'at()ry Pasadena, CA Angeles (although I've arranged to put a low 1996, ISBN mountain range between the sea and my $65.00. horne in the San Fernando Valley and to work on a mountaintop). According to Reviewed by Kevin R Grazier, Griffith Obser Verschuur's sources, a rather small NEA only vatory, Los Angeles, CA and Jet Propulsion 200 meters (600 feet) in diameter that hit in Laboratory, Pasadena, CA the middle of the Atlantic Ocean would gen erate a wall of water 200 meters (600 feet) This is a wonderful introductory book on high as it washed over the East Coast and cosmology, and is the third edition of a book Western Europe. Closer to horne for me, an which was originally published in 1977. It iron meteorite 100 meters (300 feet) in diam makes a great starting place for anybody As the author out, the ...... irn" ..., eter impacting 1000 km (600 miles) offshore interested in the study of ... v .. u,'v~"V ference between this book and would create a wave 280 meters (900 feet) Written at the intermediate undelrgradlLlat:e is that most make the "",<"'""""nH high as it breaks over the Santa Monica level, there are short problem sets at the end that the black hole is an isola ted beach, and such an impact might be expect of each chapter, and the book could reason book tackles ed somewhere on earth roughly once every ably be covered in a one-semester course. thousand years. Sobering stuff! The first three chapters are dedicated to Verschuur offers a concise and very useful introdUctory concepts ranging from electro summary of what happened during the very magnetic radiation, to the H-R to familiar story of the impact of Cornet the cosmic distance scale. This material hoJle/lJackglrOUlfld universe interaction. The Shoemaker Levy 9 onto Jupiter. Enough time would be equally at horne in an astronomy Cni:lpters are devoted to slow has now passed since the event to be able to text as in one devoted to '-V.:>HJ'U.VjI;. mQrn-sm~e(l black hole interactions. put it in funer perspective Throughout the book, equations are includ the last three are devoted Next he assesses the risk of dying by im ed only when they shed real into a hole collisions. pact and compares such risk with more con concept, and the math is, at most, at the ventional fates such as electrocution or auto introductory calculus level. accidents. This section will be of great inter After the in troductory est to anyone who wants to sort out the rela author touches on such topiCS as the tive risks and to know how to express them. bang, general and special relativity, the cos tarium '-V"UAJ" ..... '.. &L Finall y: what to do? Do we maintain an mic background radiation, and different cos other books on the arsenal of powerful weapons to blast incom mological models. Particularly appealing, which are much more 'I"IPlrtil'u'TIt' ing rocks out of the sky? Verschuur main was the inclusion of several recent images tains that at the minimum, we ought to be from the HST, IRAS, and COBE missions-in making more determined efforts to find and addition to several images taken from vari present in a catalog them. He does not minimize the ous observatories. In doing this, the author and even work involved in keeping track of the hun does a commendable job of tying theory could expect to field from even the most dreds of thousands of objects that would be into observation. This is especially helpful 26 Planetarian Electronic and Computer-Aided book to the general planetarian or amateur T'\{'\'cii-iiut> role models, and those Astronomy, by Ian S. McLean, astronomer, or even as a first text on the sub present in this book. But to Praxis Publishing Ltd., West ject to someone considering getting into Sussex, England, and John CCD imaging; for example many the WHey & Sons, West Sussex, field of low light level video imaging before England, 1994, ISBN 0-13- getting into CCD imaging. But I would rec 248246-0. ommend McLean's Electronic and Computer with the belief that his or Aided Astronomy for those who have gotten conditional Reviewed by Mike D. Reynolds, Chabot into the exciting area of CCD imaging, and Observatory and Science Center, Oakland, to anyone interested in the history of astro California, USA nomical imaging. Moon Handbook: A Travel Guide, Astronomical imaging is rapidly changing Moon Publications, from the use of photographic emulsion to Black Stars in Orbit, by Kephra P. O. Box Chico, electronic imaging, the basis for Ian Burns and WilHam Miles, nia, ISBN McLean's Electronic and Computer-Aided Gulliver Books, Harcourt Brace 066-8, $10.00. Astronomy. The book also covers a variety of and Company, 6277 Sea Harbor computer and other electronic devices, rep Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32887- Reviewed resenting today's technology, that have 6777, 1995, ISBN 0-15-200276-6, Rhode Island become the norm in astronomy. McLean's $8.95. USA book provides the reader not only with an excellent overview but with an in-depth Reviewed by Francine Jackson, University of More than once, I had to step back an d look at some of the specifics. Each chapter Rhode Island Press, Providence, Rhode Island, remember that, just because author cond udes with a list of references that USA schaar had written the book's directs the reader to solid additional refer preface at Moon City, June 2020, ences. On August 30, 1983, Colonel Guion S. work of fiction. It is so skillfully The reader is treated to an overview of the Bluford, Jr. became the first African Amer that the reader must often remind him history of the technology as it applies to ican to travel into space. As a mission special herself, "Hey! That hasn't happl~m;~d astronomy. A solid overview of CCD astron ist for STS-8, Bluford's responSibilities includ ESA didn't crash-land its first orbiter omy and overall principles, including sam ed deploying an Indian communications January 2000. There is no ple schematics for deSign, will provide the satellite and performing medical experi Company producing food and air reader ample introduction and even a begin ments in weightless conditions. As an Air Mount Schneckenherg." ning point for astronomical imaging. Force pilot and aerospace engineer, Bluford is At least not yet. Carl Operations of CCDs, as well as control sys a fine example of the American dream. But given us a handy reference gUide tems, computers, and image displays, is cov Burns and Miles explain his success as a might be. He has already laid out ered response to a "hidden message" from a high tourist sites (start at the Moon museum), McLean also discusses other detectors, school guidance counselor to go to trade ing and tour such as infrared detectors, ultraviolet detec school rather than to college. tioning us not to walk on the pro- tors and X-ray detectors. He concludes by Black Stars in Orbit is a fascinating and tected areas - and lunar modules examining overall detector development, informative book. From it I learned the his for extended AU aspects of the voyage very large telescopes, and the Hubble Space tory of the Tuskegee Airmen, and the career are covered: when best to go (between Telescope; some of which appears to be paths of many top black pilots and astro and first where to stay (Mont Blanc somewhat a deviation from the topiC at nauts. As a children's history book, this is recommended), how to solar hand excellent. But there's another aspect of this the go-carts for rent at Plato. The table of contents is very detailed, and work that concerns me. Int:en;perse:Q in this Handbook are allows the reader to quickly find sections The message this book should convey to and legends galore, from Jack and Jill to the that interests him or her. There are many the young reader - "Set your mind to a Moon illusion (ignore the backward Moon photographs, graphs, and illustrations to and follow your dream" - is overshadowed on page 125), Johannes Kepler to Verne. guide the reader through the various subjects by the negativism that exudes from virtually Also, there is a good history of "~""""\.J'Ht;,l!L, as discussed. Many of these are useful, every page. When speaking of the training every Moon mission, manned and though I felt that some of the photographs for the Tuskegee Airmen, II .M The pilots knew unmanned, aU the way up Clemen- were not of good quality or were poorly ._ if they failed (it would prove) blacks could tine and reproduced A color center plate section illus not compete in a white man's world" When This book is one of a series from Moon trates as many types of imaging possible as they excelled in flight training, "Reluctantly Travel Handbooks. the progres detailed in the book. A useful appendiX, glos they were organized into several squadrons sion from Earth to Moon seemed {'\h'<1ir~"<: sary, and index complete this hard bound ... " Another example: Captain Ed Dwight's and has made a terrific prepara edition. meteoric career through the ranks is shad tion for future travel to our nearest 'noi .... l-.hr',. Depending on the background of the read owed by page after page of negative com Utilizing Tirion maps, beautiful nhot()S!ranlhs er, one might find some sections quite tech ments about his abilities, including alleged of the lunar surface and exqUilsu:e nical, whereas another might consider it not inference that his astronaut career was bol (future of resort and manufac detailed enough. This is where the reference stered solely by John Kennedy's aim to have turing areas, this handbook is a visual section comes in handy. As a CCD-user, I am a black land on the Moon. delight. Too bad we can 't pack it in suit not certain that I would recommend this This is a children's book. ChHdren need cases for use right now.

Vol. 26, No.2, june 1997 Planetarian History of Astronomy, An Ency teacher William Roberts demonstrated that clopedia, edited by John Lank eclipsing binary stars are prolate spheroids ford, Garland Publishing, Inc., that sometimes touch one another. 1000A Sherman Avenue, Ham- While the historical emphasis of the book New den, CT 06514, 1997, ISBN 0- concerns the scientific revolution and its New York 10013-1578; 8153-0322-X, $95. consequences, the ancient and medieval ISBN 0-306-45088-7; 290 periods are adequately covered, all informed hardbound, $25.95. Reviewed by Robert D. Hicks, Richmond, by current social history emphasizing multi Virginia disciplinary perspectives. Joann Palmeri's Reviewed essay on contemporary cosmology advances The first volume in Garland Publishing's the need to reckon "nonscientific factors" Encyclopedia on the History of SCience, such as p.hilosophy, religion, and meta This book reminded me of wonderful History of Astronomy splendidly lives up to physics in trying to understand that "the cri travelogues I've enjoyed in the past. It's the editor's goal of presenting to both the teria for scientific explanation" have chang person account, a "behind-the-scenes general reader and the specialist a compendi ed over time. Similarly, Liba Taub's essay of the discovery and um of current scholarship on the history of makes clear that the proper analysis of Comet Sh()eIllaker-I astronomy. History ofAstronomy declares the ancient astronomy must conflate calendar right there. history of science to be lIa mature and inde making, navigation, agriculture, politics, and Levy describes the .nh""''''"i""CT sessions that pendent disCipline," argUing that within its religion, beyond the traditional concern led to the comet's the frustration essays the reader will clearly discern that our with chronicling mathematical astronomy: of clouded out the first l."lrll ... ,'T<' of some- understanding of the past involves a chang II Any consideration of astronomy in the thing strange. He some bac:kgrotmd ing interpretation which borrows from myr ancient world must include those ideas and information on comets and on and iad sources. In this philosophy, History of practices that were important to the ancients he quotes the many people that contributed Astronomy departs from most other one-vol themselves. The modem concept of astrono to the efforts to predict the impact sites and ume histories of the subject which give lin my as a scientific diSCipline cannot be time. Once again, I was struck with how dif ear chronologies of instruments and great anachronistically applied to antiquity; the ferent this comet's path-tracing was com men in that this book's entries are informed modern understanding of how the ancients pared, say to Halley's 1985-86 apparition. The by current social history and the sociology regarded the celestial phenomena should be Internet allowed virtually instantaneous of scientific inquiry. informed by the examination of texts and communication among a wide group of Entries are organized alphabetically, each sources that may not be considered scientific observers and researchers allover the world accompanied by a current bibliography. One but that indicate widely held views or areas The "human interest" stories were among finds the expected capsule biographies of the of controversial opinion." my favorites. Heidi Hammel's exuberant great and notable (although portrayed more This philosophy guides an essays in this arrival at a press conference, champagne bot within the context of contemporary ideas, volume. Readers familiar with Gameo and tle waving; Oark Chapman's reaction not as a series of Great White Male Astrono Copernicus will find surprises, too, as their ing the sites through his old child mers) as well as entries on major observato achievements are examined against contem hood telescope, Gene Shoemaker's sartorial ries and concepts, but one also finds entries porary ideas from many sources-particular difficulties before a formal dinner each on women in astronomy and the literature ly ecclesiastical ones-with the result that brings out the "people" side of astronomy. of astronomy, plus essays on astronomical the heroic roles hitherto assigned them dif Impact Jupiter would be a good reference research by specific countries. One topiC, fuse somewhat as their allies, enemies, com work for students WClrKI.n2: "Reward System in Modem Astronomy," elu petitors, and predecessors emerge as intel jects, a source for cidates the value, hierarchy, and influence of lects in their own right, their arguments tarium programs about comets, or awards and honors bestowed upon astron assuming force and logic. In this sense, this read some clouded-out weekend. omers. The reward system essay emphasizes book treats astrology as a domain worthy of how social history infuses this volume. serious scholarly interest. The entry "Catho The author states that the "comparative lic Church and Astronomy" debunks popu Time and Space (a volume in the social history of modem science is an invit lar myths about GaHleo's showdown with Eyewitness Science series), ing research frontier, and the reward system clerics, arguing that Catholic doctrine "pro John and Mary Gribbin, Dar provides a challenging starting point." What vided .... Western Christendom with crucial ling Kindersley, 64 pp, 1994. other encyclopedia of astronomy mentions insights for the fortunes of physical science." $15.95 this topic? John Lankford, the editor, must be con Many of the longer entries essays are just gratulated on managing to incorporate such Reviewed Robert Ballou, Atlanta, GA plain fun as well as enlightening. The stimu diverse, timely, important essays in one vol 30307. lating essay "Literature and Astronomy" will ume, and with such apparent unity in histo send readers to the library to read John riographical thinking. This volume is an Schrodinger's cat, wormholes, black holes, Donne's IIGood Friday 1613" or Thomas important landmark as it will serve many ultimate and relativi- Hardy's "At a Lunar Eclipse." "Amateurs in uses for years. My only criticism is that the ty, quantum oddity - it's all here, with Astronomy" will foster resolve in any neo illustrations are poor: the black-and-white other strange and plain features of space and phyte because amateurs here receive respect photographs of standard subjects are pood y time, in this fine volume in the ful and respectable treatment. One learns, for reproduced, and many of the computer-gen Kindersley series Science. Written instance, that William Henry Stanley erated diagrams are very crude. At the un by popular science writer and scientist John Monck, a bankruptcy judge, recognized a conscionable price of $95, this volume is like Gribbin (In Search ofSchrodinger's Cat and Tn relationship between stellar characteristics ly to reach public libraries only, which is a (See Book Re,llie'ws. continued on page 30) and radial velocities, while South African pity.

28 Planetarian Vol. 1997 E

Mauna Kea, Australian Outback, The Space Shuttle in Orbit and A Goto GSS ... Hellos Planetarium Theater. .... What do all these places have A spectacular view of a crisp,

Shonandai Culture Center

GSS-Helios The GSS-Helios (GSX) features 25,000 stars reproducing a sky seen only from space. Digital shutters mean paJnOl~anlas without stray stars twinkling through the image. Computer-assisted functions give manual mode the ease auto mode without replacing the lecturer. The list of special GOTO features goes on and on. Contact your nearest representative and find out what your planetarium could be like.

The G 1014si offers Space Simulator functions GOTO's exclusive automatic lamp mechanism. No more shows lost to lamp burnout. With the G 1014si, your spare lamp leaps into action with a simple touch of a button at the console. Simple, fast and efficient. That's a GOTO Planetarium.

GOlD 4-16 Yasaki-cho Fuchu-shi, Tokyo 183 JAPAN TEL: Intl No. +81-423-62-5312 FAX: IntI No. +81-423-61-9571 Email: [email protected] GI014si Big Cypress Swamp Star problem. April 1982 The lecture on celestial mechaniCS, Planetarium stars, and a not-risen-yet moon lasted Soon after I started as Planetarium Director an hour and was wen received at St. Petersburg Junior College, St. After the stargaze, I unrolled my sleE~pir\g Memories Petersburg/Gibbs Campus, I heard of the bag on set of top bunk Botany Class Field Trip to the Fakahatchee slept soundly until breakfast time. Strand in Big Cypress Swamp of the After I hiked back +h ..,...""h Everglades. It was an extensive trip lasting Kenneth E. Perkins swamp to the hole in the fence over several days with an overnight camp at five tall palm trees. 6624 12th Avenue North an abandoned field packing station on an I knew that there were uU.'J;;.a~v. even more abandoned railroad line. St. Petersburg Florida 33710 area but it wasn't until later that I Knowing that biology classes didn't sched that the Fakahatchee Strand at the west ule visits to the planetarium, I inquired of the Everglades is the site of the ,"-,,,,,J'-U4UU about the possibility that members of the Prison Farm and the horne habitat Stars of Truth and Knowledge botany class might enjoy looking at real stars Florida panther. As planetarium director (lecturer), it was from the latitude of their campsite with my joy and delight to work with youngsters hopefully a clear and dark sky. Later, I was as they came by groups on field trips to see invited by the instructors, Frank Bushnell the star shows. My usual introduction in the and Claude Hilliard, to visit their overnight E\.Ca'U:-"''''A continued from page 28) hallway was to introduce them to the word camp and conduct a stargaze. "constellation" and to my favorite constella The trip from St. Petersburg to Copeland Search ofthe Big Bang) and his wife tion, Orion, the Hunter, using a chalkboard down the newly opened Interstate 75 high and Space provides a wonderful, and a rubber ball. As I drew round stars in the way wac; faster but without the benefits of not deep, survey of its subject in the rich chalkboard, I explained that stars are round rest areas and roadside food shops. I did stop graphic display for which the is so like a ball and not five pointed design stars in Fort Myers to visit an aunt and cousin and well known and regarded. like those on a flag or ... or .. , had a meager lunch that was to be supplant With winning headings such "The PhiJoso A group visiting the planetarium at the ed by a fried chicken carry-out. Not realizing phy of Time/' "God's Dice," and "How to junior college was a group of older Boy the delay that it would cause, I went off the Build a Time Machine," each two-page Scouts, many with Downs Syndrome. I saw highway looking for the chicken. ter (there are 29 in all) includes a short them coming up the hallway with their rag Making a wrong tum onto Alligator Alley tory passage; sharp, well-captioned tag uniforms ... some with a scout shirt, some caused further delay at the toll booth when tographs, schematics and illustrations; brief with scout pants, and some with caps and the toll collector wouldn't let me make a U biography of the scientist of the moment; and neckerchiefs. turn so I could go south and east on the lots of things to look at. The I told them about the two stars on the Tamiami Trail that was the hypotenuse of a effect isn't lacking here. Tenderfoot badge that stand for the ideals of large triangle. Instead, I had to continue on Though the concepts truth and knowledge, like the three paints Alligator Alley that was one leg of triangle Time and often stand for the three points of the Scout Law. and south past the Copeland Farm on the common sense, readers will find the To further illustrate, I raised my hand other leg of the triangle. thoughtful and engaging. From "Timescales with my three middle fingers extended as I The directions that had been given to me of History," the Gribbins write, "How is held my pinky finger with my thumb gestur were: "Go to Copeland, take the gravel road the history of time? In the 17th century Arch ing the Scout Sign, and as I did so did my big until you reach a group of five tall palm trees bishop James Ussher calculated from dues little boy audience saying ,.. with the college van parked underneath. Go that he found in the Bible that the creation of through a hole in the fence and follow a trail the Universe had occurred in 4004 Be. If he liOn my honor I will do my best that was the former railroad bed. It's about a was right, now the history of the earth has To do my duty to God and my country two mile walk." lasted only 6000 years, but evidence from and to obey the Scout Lawj My arrival time at the palms was just at astronomy, biology, and geology shows that the Archbishop was wrong," The ..... u ..J.' .... To help other people at all times ,Mil sunset and as I walked along the trail it became darker and darker. Fortunately, the "Black holes and Beyond" "A black I was choked up and a tear was running trail was open and rough only in a couple of hole is an object that has such a down one of my cheeks as the boys marched spots. vitational that nothing, not even into the planetarium chamber. I get goose Finally, I saw a light at the end of the tun can escape from it. In the 1780s the British bumps just thinking about it. nel of the overhanging canopy of trees. The physicist John Mitchell pointed out that a Those big-little boys were an ideal audi light was the brightly blazing campfire at the star 500 times bigger than the Sun but with ence, They laughed at the right time, they camp out and soon, as others said, "Ken the same density would trap light in the same ooo-ed at the right time, aahh-ed at the right emerged from the forest." way. Nobody took the idea seriously .... " time, and at the end of the show they Following a dessert of cookies and coffee, A note on the copyright page from the applauded at the right time. the stargaze began with only one problem: publisher to parents and teachers states that As they walked out the door they pumped with campsite surrounded by the canopy of the EyeWitness Science series my hand vigorously as they thanked me. trees, there was only a small patch of dear children to observe and question the world Some of them gave me hugs. They were dark sky with one or two constellations, Leo around them." Judging from Timeand warm and I cried as they waved good-bye and Virgo, and one or two bright stars, suspect that young adults, middle schoolers going down the hallway. Regulus and Spica. The last quarter moon and up, will find this excellent series I sniffed, thinking, lilt's time for Taps." that would rise after midnight caused no rewarding than children will.

30 Plane t arian Vol. Ever since the discovery of ancient bones and the first use of the word "dinosaur" to describe the creatures they once were, people around the world have been fascinated by these prehistoric beasts.

N ow, your audiences too can share the excitement and wonder at the diversity and magnificence of these beings who once dom inated the earth as no other group of creatures has since.

Presented in a smoothly-flowing narrative style, your audience back for the feel of the time of

how geologic time works in a method that is at once '-"AA ....I....,LJe understood.

By using fresh, new and exciting depictions of the dinosaurs '-,LA... " ...... 1... .:>""' ... than twenty overall), this dynamic show answers the

• Exactly what were the dinosaurs? • Were all creatures of that time dinosaurs? • Are there any dinosaurs left? • How big were they? • Did they live all over the world?

• What did they eat? From some of the smallest to the most gigantic, the • How did they die? very earliest to the latest, "Dinosaurs!" tells their • How did we find out about them?

Best of all, this dramatic 30-minute show featuring more that 150 V.l ...... ' ...... IL ...... slides

.0 (Plus Shipping) ORDER Joe Hopkins Engineering • P.O. Box 14278 • Call 1- OO-JH o feature, while the Carousel projectors do that shots taken with a nCln-1Dir~-n~gi~;telred not.) Secondly, an the projectors in dissolve camera can't be to line PI netechnic set must be aimed so that their projection if of original artwork are positions are registered relative to each other positioned on the While on the dome. This is accomplished using spe buy pin-registered slide mounts cial registration-grid sUdes that can be com the three rectarlgular Low-Tech Slide mercially purchased, dropped into the pro- the fUm as acc:ufi:ltely Alignment ... there are some cheap alternatives and techniques available to the "pin-registered less" planetarian that can make life Richard McColman aligning slides ... Morehead Planetarium CB #3480 Morehead Bldg. jectors, and their projectors re-aimed until tered camera will let them - which University of North Carolina the grid-lines of the projected slides overlay really. This leads to dissolve sequences Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3480 each other on the dome. The third require which the common elements in UH..... /rJH. ment for smooth dissolve sequences is the slides aren't stalU()n,UY on the dome; but registration of the film bits in their slide instead appear to about the Making slide images line up on the dome mounts - each against the others. This is sequence. is easy if you have a pin-registered camera where we start to run into trouble putting Enter Wess plastics - perhaps the fore setup. But few of us can afford such equip shows together. most manufacturer of slide ment, which typically runs into the thou A pin-registered camera can expose each mounts - with a solution, called the VR (or sands of dollars. This is a dilemma for plane image frame on the film in an exact position Variable Registration) mounting system. In tarians wanting to create professional-look relative'to the film's eight pairs of closest the VR system, the slide mounts do not have ing presentations, because positioning tiny sprocket holes (Figure 1) - and do this consis- the traditional set of three rectangular chips of film in small plastic frames but instead, have two tiny round requires a keen eye, micro-precise designed to position between the bot manual dexterity, and gobs of time , II .... III II 111111111111l1li tom row of film perforations and the I fUm edge (Figure 3). To com- and patience - at least it's always ~ seemed so. Well, actuall y there are • the system is the VR some cheap alternatives and tech j tt which lets the user niques available to the "pin-reg is chips of film - sandwiched .""Fo,'- ...... , l1li111l1li l1lil1lil1lil1lil1li teredless" planetarian that can make - onto a dear window (back-illumi- life easier when aligning slides, and Figure 1 nated with a light table), and we'll explore some of those in this install the necessary tiny holes in the ment. tently from one shot to the next, On the pieces. If done the VR system other hand, a non-pin-registered camera sim take care of a number of Dissolvable Slides ply places the film with its edge perforations in an approximated position, and is much less The first problem in slide alignments consistent in doing so. The poSitions of the registering slides in dissolve sequences where involves the treatment of dissolve sequences. images against their adjacent sprocket-holes horizontal, or left-right, is (For the uninitiated, a dissolve sequence con - as exposed in a non-pin-registered camera needed to align images. tains two or more slides which are designed - could be a little left, or little right, and also But the VR system has its limits. Because with some similar elements but some dissim a bit up or down compared with each other, it's designed to actually punch holes in the ilar ones, too - such as a series first depicting or with an absolute standard. This means film, you really only get one chance to a comet nucleus, then the same comet nucle it right". If one of the film chips out of us with gas jets, and then the nucleus with position during the punching the jets expanded, and so on. When the slides then you've essentially locked-in an inaccu in a sequence are placed in two or more pro rate registration. The tight tolerances in reg jectors - all aimed at the same location on istration leave little room for error, and a sec the dome - each slide can be shown in suc ond punch-attempt will serve to cession, creating a crude "movie" or anima elongate the otherwise round holes pWlcrlea tion in which - in the case of our comet in the film, making the special VR holes example - the nucleus appears to have gas unusable. jets dynamically erupting from its surface.) In addition, the VR system doesn't work To create the illusion of continuous, o o o too well for anything the most unchanging elements along with the evolv minor vertical or rotational skewing, due to ing elements within a dissolve sequence, the the limited space available between the fac projectors in a "dissolve set" must first be tonr-Olmched recltanQ:u}.u pl:rforations and able to register, or precisely pOSition, their registration pins the film edge. While fixes slides when they drop into the gates. (In the can help the significantly, there's case of Kodak projectors, the Ektagraphic another class of image positioning that the and Ektapro models have this registration Figure 2

32 Plane tar ian Vol. tion-distortion. But the majority imagery on the dome. But there of planetariums have instruments side" to this approach Successful

that IIsUck up" in the centers of ment requires the steady hand of their theaters. This forces plane goon, along with gobs of time and pat:ierlce. tarium pan-projection-system (Would you prefer a root canal?) designers to 'Ishoot around" one However, there is a strategy side (usually the left) of the star facilitate the process. machine when projecting pan slides (Figure 4). The off-kilter pro Using jection leads to parallax error and Many of us without piIl-n:!gi;stered VR registration pins "keystoned" images resul ting eras don't buy pin-registered mounts. Instead from light beams hitting the these folks gravitate toward mounts dome in a non-perpendicular ori - or in the case of Wess customers, VR Figure 3 entation. (Figure 5 shows the mounts. Since, at first glance, the registl:ation familiar effect of several rectangular, non pins in regular pin-registered mounts appear VR system is poody-equipped to deal with - masked and non-opaqued slides projected to be of no use when hand-aligning pans, the alignment of adjacent and overlapping this way.) they seem to be wasted in this UiJIJH .... UUU ... images of the dome, such as multi-section The best way to deal with this distortion is But closer examination reveals that those panoramas. to rephotograph the slide with counter-distor- pins can actually be a bleSSing. When hand- aligning - free Hand-aligned Pans hand - in a nOn-Y1Jn-re!>!lS Panoramas which are "done right" can be tered mount, there are some of the most impressive images created really no "benchmarks" with slides in the planetarium. WeB-execut against which to the ed pans aren't just slides on the dome - they position of the film. If, for can create new environments for the audi example, you need to raise ence. But to do this, aU the individual slides the right-hand side of a in a panorama - be they six, twelve, or some sl ide to get its other number - must be closely aligned and FigureS "horizon line" to match blended with their adjacent component that of the slide prc)jectcd images. Though well-aligned pans create tion added. In the past, planetarians have immediately to the right - which is often impressive Visuals, a haphazardly-composed done this by concocting elaborate jigs to the case in facilities where pans are prcllected multi-section horizon scene can destroy the hold the original artwork at contortionistic past the left side of the star machine - it's intended illusion quicker than most any angles and curves, or - in the case of slides difficult to establish and maintain visual element in the dome. And this prob from a show kit - by performing similar pOSition for the left-hand side of the film lem is compounded by a phenomena found trickery with intricately-manipulated pro during the procedure. The total free-float of in the slide-projection schemes of many jection rephotography. Recently, Sky-Skan's the hand-aligned film chip in a domes - parallax error. DigiDome software has been employed to do mount makes alignment ex,ce€:!dilngl The computer-generated Digistar; some of the same thing with incredible accuracy in cult. Whenever one side of the film is the more recent star machines incorporating the digital computer-imaging environment, Honed, the other end is almost "unibaU" technology; and domes with hypo with final slide-image output to a precision moved,too. spheric layouts, present little, if any, obstruc film recorder. While effective, all of these This is where pin-registered mounts come techniques are way too expensive and prob tion to projecting slides straight across the in. In this case, the registration pins rather dome - the only way to minimize projec- ably too complex for the tight-budgeted and than establishing absolute positional refer less-apt audiovisual producers ences - can be used as 'I benchmarks" for rel among us. ative position. For example, by out As a resul t, some planetarians the "bottom" edges of the sprocket holes in have tried aligning pans and other star the center and right sides of the film slides by hand-manipulating the but maintaining the entire film pel:tolratl,on film rectangles in their slide projector corresponding with the left pin in the mounts. By skewing and tilting the film ) chips and then anchor ing them in place with adhesive tape, it's possi pan ble to re-align panora projector mas. Precisely tilting each film chip to com- o beam pensate for the effect of 1(' projected parallax error can do an amazingl y effective job of creating Figure 4 seamless panoramic Figure 6

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian mount, the right side can be raised while the cut along the perf-tops.) In addition, you'n sUionmg the left side remains anchored (Figure 6). In addi also need to continue this horizontal cut dropping it into the tion, the right-side pin now serves as a leftward to penetrate into - but not beyond checking it against the adilaCl~nt nrcljection, "benchmark" against which to judge the ver - the hole that would normally fit over the and trying again - as many times as tical offset of the film on the right-hand side. left pin. Then snip off this The film's right side can then be affixed with strip with a small vertical cut a piece of adhesive tape to anchor it in the from the lower film-chip edge mount. Of course, precise positioning in this up to the bottom of that pin system still carries with it a bit of trial and perforation. This leaves you error, but the presence of the registration with just one intact sprocket pins makes the process much more manage hole at the bottom of the able. In this case, raising the right side of the film, on the left-hand side, film is sometimes possible - within limits - and the left-most margins of because the actual3Smm image-frame size is the second perf from the left typically a bit larger than the slide-mount (Figure 8). Doing this makes it opening. easy to visually gauge any But sometimes, raising the right-hand sides horizontal repositioning, by 8 of panorama sections enough to match their checking the space between image-horizon lines brings the black-film the left pin and the left edge of the truncated area below the pan images above the spring sprocket hole. And any tilting of the film can line of the dome. This creates a series of nar also be visually gauged against the top(s) of row black wedges visible at the base of the the pins. On the other hand, lowering the lett panorama Because of this, it may be a better side will require cutting away not only the strategy to lower the lett side of pan sections sprocket holes, but also up to the bottom of instead. To do this, make a horizontal cut the image - except for the partial sprocket starts to become a more intuitive just along the bottom edge of the pan-section hole remaining for positional-reference process. It's not as and dean" image, so you can cut away all the sprocket against the right registration pin (Figure 9). as with a counter-distortion holes to the left of the rightmost pin in the Perhaps a bit confusing at first, but you11 get method and a pirl-n!gi!ael~ed mount (Figure 7). Cutting above the sprocket the hang of it. Similarly, repositioning the image towards the right can be Of course, you1! want to facilitated by mirroring either pesky BFRs (Big Fat Rec:tangJles) of the cutting-patterns describ slides, too, before Ml1nniinCT ed in the above paragraph. do this via cOJuaICt-l')rrrn nlas.l

But what if the image requires nrr.'UIt"p the low-tech l-/!a.U'-"UAUU moving to the left or right - as wen as tilting - to become aligned? In the case of sliding to the left and lift ing the right side, you11 need to start by cutting away the sprocket holes right up to the very tops of the holes you don't have a pinl-r~gis1:en;~d from the right side over toward the buy pin-registered mounts. left registration pin. This is actually provide you with lots pretty easy with a sharp pair of scis and slides. sors and some patience. (Try it a cou ple of times on some scrap film chips for practice. In fact, it's rather surpris- Figure 9 ing how closely you can align this

34 Planetarian Vol. Most Frequently Questions: QUESTION: What is lb!1 most frequently asked question about eST AR HUSTLER'? ANSWER: Thafs easy. Everybody asks about our theme song which is t~ classic 'Ar~besque #1' by Claude Debussy performed by Tomita on the stili available ·Snowflakes Are pancimt album (RCA) , QUESTION: At what times and days of tile week can I see 'STAR • HUSTLER'? ANSWER: Most TV stations air 'STAR HUSTLER' just before nightly sign-off. However, due to 'STAR HUSTLER's' enormous popularity a number of stations find the show's 5-minute format can fit anywhere during the broadcast day and air the show more frequently. Local TV listings seldom include 5-minute shows, so irs best to call the station for the broadcast schedule. QUESTION: If I can't find 'STAR HUSTlER' on my hometown PBS station, how can I see It where I live? ANSWER: 'STAR HUSTLER' is provided free of charge by WPBT, Miami to all PBS stations. If you can't find it, write or call your local PBS station and ask if they will air it and remind them that it is. available free of charge. QUESTION: is It necessary to get special permission to use 'STAR The world's first and only weekly TV series HUSTLER' for astronomy dub meetings, teaching In the on naked-eye astronomy dasgoan, 9dence nuam or pIaneIari.m use? ANSWER: No. In fact many astronomy clubs, teachers, science museums and planetariums have been taping 'STAR HUSTlER' off ft• •• one of the few writers who can the air and using it regularly as a way to reach their public. translate sophisticated disciplines into

popular language without losing the science. II QUESTION: Is there any way I can get 'STAR HUSTLER' other Dr. Sidney Fox, Nobel laureate than my local PBS station? ANSWER: Yes. A month's worth of 'STAR HUSTLER' episodes are fed monthly to a satellite from which all PBS stations take it for "... knows how to come down from the ivory tower and make astronomy their local programming. ~ with a satellite dish is welcome to accessible. If the satellite feed. Again, no permission is required. For satellite George Levi, Astronomer feed dates and times call Monday through Friday (Eastern time) 305-854-4242. Ask for Mrs. Harper or Mr. Dishong. American Museum/Hayden Planetarium QUESTION: I an a teacher planning my a.rricuIum and would like several 'STAR HUSTLER' episodes in advance, but I do ..... 1 never miss it. As someone totally not haw access to a satelll1e dish. Is there any Qbr way I involved in science fiction, I'm enthralled can obtain 'STAR HUSTLER'? with Jack Horkheimer's science fact. If John Nathan Turner, ANSWER: Any teacher anywhere around the YIOrld can obtain 'STAR Executive Producer, 'Dr. Who' HUSTlER' episodes in advance through their NASA C.O.R.E. Teachers' Resource Center. For details write:NASA C.O.R.E.; Lorain County Joint Vocational School; 15181 Route 58 South; Syndicated Obenin, OH. 44074. iami QUESTION: Why does 'STAR HUSTLER' always say "Keep Looking upr' at the end of each show? Produced in cooperation with Miami Museum of Science & ANSWER: Have you ever tried star gazing looking down? Space Transit Planetarium

Seen on PBS North America and

satellite, the Armed -'£11.--'''''''11<:"'" "'."...... , .... & NASA Starlabs, possibly one of them super-sized, gift certificates which can be applied toward will be set up, and poster papers dealing with the purchase of any LTI products. Trans Mobile News topics of interest to small and portable plane parent cylinders will be provided to con taria. will run concurrent to presentations in testants at an extremely reduced cost Of, if Network the domes. The idea is to get as many new materials are chosen to be included in the and interesting ideas as possible in the frame manual, charges will be refunded Deadline work of the workshop time slotted for applications is July 31, 1997. Contact LTI for contest rules and further details. (Learn Susan Reynolds New e-mail ing Technologies Inc., Transparent Cylinder Onondaga-Cortland Ray Worthy (15 Queensberry Avenue, Contest, 40 Cameron Avenue, Somerville, Madison Hartlepool, Cleveland TS26 9NW, United Massachusetts 02144 USA: Fax 617-628-8606; Kingdom; e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]) B.O.C.E.S. Planetarium .co.uk) is conducting a huge survey to find P.O. Box 4754 locations of portable users around the world PIPS Meet in June His inquiries seem to be producing some The next meeting of Powerful Interactive Syracuse, NY 13221 interesting results. I look forward to reading Planetarium Systems (pIPS) will be hosted by 315-433-2671 his report. A preliminary report will be given Gary Burgess at Oswego College in New York 315-432-4523 fax at the MAPS May 1997 meeting. State on Friday, June 20th. Gary has booked three rooms plus the 20-foot planetarium, [email protected] Transparent Cylinder Contest Spitz A-3P. There will be plenty of room to A last reminder: Win big in the LTI set up portables and any other materials you Please note the new PO Box and fax numbers wish to demonstrate. Contest! Learning Technologies Inc. is spon above. soring a contest to inspire creative uses of the I am still waiting to hear that other IPS Regions are also holding PIPS meetings. Starlab T~ansparent Cylinder. A collection of GlPA Conference 1997 quality drawings and curriculum materials Sharon Mendonsa, Southeastern Planetarium Association, has expressed an interest in con Plans are underway for an extraordinary gathered from entries will be published in a ducting such a meeting. It will be great to Starlab workshop at the October Great Lakes manual and made available to worldwide Planetarium Association conference. Four users. Prizes include $250, $600, and $1000 hear the results of her efforts. '*

Contact us for the first truely affordable professional multitrack Digital Audio Workstation. We can add it on to your computer, or bundle a system with it! 3~?~d~~...... DesifJ)n Sales Installation Servioe,

748 'E. Bates St. Suite 3001/1,1 0 Indianapolis, IN 46202 317.226.9650 fox 317.226.9651 [email protected]

VIIW\III. oovvenproauctions. corn c

36 Planetarian Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 ences into Mexican planetariums, awaken film festivals. As an eX;:lm]Jle, ing interest in astronomy basics. The Hidalgo Planetarium inaugurated early this year a new Science Center, Rehilete, with many interactive facilities. The Luis E. Erro Planetarium has broken grounds to become part of a new Science Center adja cent to its facility. The Planetario de Ciudad Victoria was advertised by Goto Optical Mfg. Co. In the April issue of Sky & Telescope maga Hamngatan 1 zine, revealing its impressive architecture. Sweden +46 2310 British Associations of Planetariums 137 fax +46 Armagh Planetarium. With the appearance [email protected] of one of the biggest comets in recent times, so comes a new production, Comet: From Ice and [email protected] home page recent to Fire, which answers questions about these Ryan ...n ...... lt\., www.dalnet.se/-stella fleeting visitors. It features comets old and Mobile Planetarium Astronomer. new, from Halley to Hale-Bopp, and a futuris The museum is going The Regional Roundup column depends tic manned landing on a cometary nucleus The rerrlalnlmg entirely on contributions that I receive from in 2060. es include a refit. This year IPS Affiliate Associations allover the world Greenwich Planetarium. Domeless plane hope to have a first-hand look at all the new Please continue to contribute as you have tar ian Alex Lovell hijacked the planetarium digital technology (Virtuarium, Electric done before. In order to be sure that your for two very successful shows for the deaf and Star Rider) that could transform the the text will make it into the column, please during a special day of signed events at the ater into a multi-purpose, virtual send it so I have it at the first day of the Old Royal Observatory. Further shows are ater. Plans are to open the new theatre Planetarian deadline month, preferably by e planned year 2000. mail. The deadlines for contributions to No. London Planetarium. For the national week Planetarium de Montreal. The 3/97 is thus 1 July, and for No. 4/971 October. of science engineering and technology, attendance of the Planetarium for 1996 Thanks to Bart Benjamin, Ignacio Castro, Galileo appeared before schoolchildren to about 150,000 visitors based on pr~~UIIlinarv Tom Clarke, Undine Concannon, Jon Elvert, talk about his Ufe and how he explained the results. Of these, about 145 000 John Hare and Zinaida Sitkova for contribut universe by his observations. Using a variety the programs in the star theater and ing to the Regional Roundup Column this of entertaining props, he demonstrated the 5000 in ;)I.JIO;:Ll,cU time. You are welcome back with new force of gravity with great gusto. The week Astronomers at the Planetarium ",,,,.~ .. ;.~.",,rl reports, and I look forward to reports from also marked with an exhibition of paintings to write articles for two ; ...... ",,,,,-i-.,.,,,i other Associations as well. by Joe TUCciarone, which was well received newspapers, La Presse in Montreal Important notice: Unfortunately, there by visitors and staff alike. The planetarium SaleH in are also might be problems with my regular e-mail dome is now red, in aid of charity - to learn announce that Planetarium de Montreal connection in the summer. Therefore I ask why you will have to come to IPS/98. be the host of the International Planetarium you to send your contribution to both the BAP Meeting 1997 was held 17-18 May at Conference in 2000. addresses given above. Please remember that the Planetarium in Fort Victoria, Isle of Two new services were in full a short note is also appreCiated! Wight, where Paul England had ation at the end of 1996: a stepped in as host at short notice. Association for information about the CIEL, in French and an Internet address Planetariums Canadi an Council for the Planetarium Planetarium Strasbourg with Director Centers Agnes Acker hosts this year's IPS Council At its Annual Meeting of 18 June 181996, prc)dUlcti,on for the next Meeting 23 June. The delegates who chose to the Canadian Council of Science Centres program and exhibition stay in Strasbourg can attend the TiLE Con agreed to take over the function of the Plan comets. Even their biggest exhibition of the ference 24-26 June. etarium Association of Canada (PAC) in pro year, An Island in Space, is on the viding a means of support, communication, board.. A live of the current Association of Mexican representation, etc. of the Canadian Plane night sky and on the most recent astronomi Planetariums tarium community. CCSC immediately cal discoveries will be presented on The 1997 AMP AC Meeting took place at applied to the international Planetarium evenings (The A new 'l1"i-l""H'" the Veracruz Merchant Maritime School Society (IPS) to replace PAC as the recognized offering popular talks by astronomy experts, Planetarium 22-24 May. Hubble Space Tele IPS affiliate for Canadian planetariums. This presentations of the seasonal door ",'h.,,,,,.. ,,,: ...,,,, st!ssi.ons, scope slides were shown to interested was approved by IPS Council in July 1996. AMP AC members wishing to incorporate Manitoba Planetarium, Manitoba Museum them in their sky shows. The distribution of Man and Nature has lately been offering process of the slides has been initiated. what seems as everything but planetarium Comet Hale-Bopp has brought new audi- shows. Over the last few months they have done everything from product launches to

Vol. 1997 Planetarian for a major refit. While the upgrade was not students have enjoyed the Starlab the other levels as radical as the one performed at the ence, four StarIab teacher workshops have In the meantime, a Stadab program Calgary Science Centre, it was a significant been held, and three more are scheduled the Ontario Museum to step forward toward the goal of becoming a McLaughlin Planetarium, Royal Ontario astronomy for SCil0()!S, true space centre within the next 9 to 12 Museum. Since May 1996 Tom Clarke has Museum has Durchlas~~d

months. Components of the planetarium been involved in a public call for expressions for use in the museum VUJUl ....' ... '" upgrade induded a new automation system ofinterest from potential business partners in ROM's education programs, and a new laser programming and playback the renewal of the planetarium site. That call one for use outside the ROM as system, plus a stage complete with lighting generated thirteen proposals which were outreach programs. Under the dlrlectilon and audio systems and controls. The capaci short-listed by December 1996 to the one Ian programs have ty was also reduced to 230 seats. judged best to meet the Museums objectives oped and six instructors The theater reopened on time, and pro for the site. The Board of the Royal Ontario use the and present the pr()grarrlS. grams were installed at a rate of roughly one Museum has been dealing with manage The outreach Starlab has a week for the first five weeks. Opening show ment's recommendation to begin serious over 1,000 in three months. was The Sky Tonight: A Walk in Heaven's negotiations with that potential partner. If Garden. they are successful and timely in negotia The final phases of work are now under tions and decision making, the cinema por way for the opening of the Pacific Space tion could open by March 1988. The plane Centre itself. At this pOint, the new facility is tarium portion would be dependent on the on "~t·" .. rl~u scheduled to open in October 1997. As part of timing of the necessary fund raising. from the Waubonsie the final phase, the star theater will be dosed The proposal contemplates three compo Planetarium in Aurora hosted the mE~enng. again to paint the dome, recover the seats, nents to the renewed facUity: building reno The Cernan Earth and and install video projection systems. vations and an Omnimax theater, funded Triton The Atlantic Space Sciences Foundation and operated by the partner; a planetarium annual (TASSF), Halifax, Nova Scotia, is a group of housed in the same theater with eqUipment underway for the Cernan Center to invite volunteers who own and operate a Starlab. and programming provided by the Royal astronaut Eugene Cernan to a series of events For the most part, Starlab operates out of Ontario Museum; revenue generating com in November to commemorate the Discovery Centre. As of this writing, the mercial activities or, possibly, high-tech anniversary of his final the Starlab is booked into May 1997. Some 7000 interactive exhibitions and experiences in moon. The Ceman Center is CUl'ferltly

E TH

PRODUCE LTI-COLOR I

INPUT BEAM APERTURE: <2.0mm

PHONE: WORLD WIDE WEB

INTEGRATING LASERS, ELECTRONICS AND K-...... "' ...... ,.

38 Planetarian Vol. ing The Space Shuttle: An American Adventure phone system has been installed on campus, Church of along with its own production Comet Hale which means that the has a year. Alan Bopp: An Observer's Guide. It is also showing new information Hne with a menu of Team is hard at work. SHde rnn.""r",_ its children's show Zip! Zoom! Whiz!, the options for program information. Hon is in progress and the technical Monthly Skywatch, and Floydfest, two differ The William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Hons and are also in the ent laser shows featuring the rock band Pink Parkland College in Champaign welcomes translated Floyd Mary Nicholas back to the operations posi Mlcnllgan: The AV."','-U'~".U The llIinois State University Planetarium tion. The planetarium is working on a state was held on Saturday, 10 in KaJlanlazoo. in Normal welcomes Kevin Emergy to its grant project with seven county museums to Eric Schreur from the Kalamazoo staff of student workers. Kevin is majoring in link with 25 classrooms across the state in Planetarium hosted the me~eting. physics teacher education. addition to collaborating on a similar grant The The Lakeview Museum Planetarium in with the Adler Planetarium. Dr. Jeff Hunt, Peoria is currently showing Through the Eyes after receiving his EdD., moved into admin ofHubble as their feature show. The Saturday istration at Waubonsie Valley High School. morning series of family shows highlights Mary Schindewolf, formed y from Lourdes comet Hale Bopp. It is a recorded/live comet College in Sylvania, Ohio, has assumed the show culminating in a trip to the comet's duties as Planetarium Director. nucleus; students are then able to pass Indiana: The Indiana State Meeting was around synthetic comet material produced held on Saturday, 12 April 1997 in Muncie. in Sheldon Schafer's freezer. Preparations are Peggy Gebhart from the Muncie Commu being made for the visit of dinosaurs to the nity Schools Planetarium and Ron Kaitchuck museum and the planetarium. The dinosaurs from the BaH State Planetarium co-hosted will remain through 10 August. Plans are also the event. being formulated for the annual solar system Kudos to Gregg and Barb Williams for bicycle ride in July and motorcycle ride in their ongOing efforts and success i ...n7AI'u;-,."n August. high school students in GLPA. This year, the The Abrams Planetarium in East ------0 The Strickler Planetarium in Kankakee Merrillville contingent numbered nine stu has continued Cat in debuted Rusty Rocket during their home dents and three adult leaders. Alan Pareis is the show. From Stardust coming weekend in November. A new now the Interim Pastor of the Federated

(N48062-2.5-.55 :::: PCAOM I .... «1'""1..-. ... -.-. MODULATE A USED BY LASER LIGHT SHOWS

WAVElENG1H5 fRDM A SINGLE 5WtfCH .. THE N55OO4 5EAM o MODULA1E5 UP TO a WAVELENGtHS 5IMULlI\NEjOOSl)' QUALITY o EffICIENCY >8m. PER WAVElENGlH

OINfUT 5EAMAPErmJRE: <: 2.5mm STA,NiJJ'-Ii':'D «4.5mm OPTIONAL)

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian in May. For the fall, Abrams is working on a Planetarium reported that several hundred Ohio's planetariums while Comet Milky Way show. The sCript was written by people came to their opening on 5 lighted the real At Ken Croswell, author of Alchemy of the They ran preview shows every half hour Beecher Dl".,..,o1-"u·;n,rn Heavens, a recent popular book on the Milky from noon to 7 p.m. for two days! Now they the story of comets past and Way. They're planning to make the show are running Planet Quest, an interactive, show running from Ppi'lrll'::'1"" thJ~OUlgh available to other planetariums. live/canned program from Sky-Skan, that May. The Hurst Planetarium has presented a takes the viewers on a flight through the Adler's Comets Are Coming! was number of shows targeted to specific grade solar system. Their shows have all been sold the Bowling Green Planetarium levels, including The Little Star that Could, out so far! University of Toledo's Ritter Worlds of Wonder, and Comets and Eclipses. The Kalamazoo Valley Museum has been Ritter also gave Saturday matinees A.\..u~u.u.t;, The McMath Planetarium at the Cran showing their own production Secrets In the Follow the Drinking Gourd and brook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills Sky, about the underground railroad, and Stars. BGP runs a double feature created an event around Comet Hale-Bopp Winter Stargazing. Plans are underway for EdgeHght Production's short involving three solid weeks of nightly their hosting the Michigan state meeting on Explorer the comet show. observing sessions in late March and early May 10, which will showcase the museum's these northwest Ohio "..,i"",,.<'i April. The Cranbrook Museum is currently Universe Theater and Planetarium. have web sites you can browse at under renovation and construction. Work Ohio: The Ohio State Meeting was held on continues on plans to upgrade the planetari Saturday, 12 April 1997 at the Wilderness um. Center Planetarium in Wilmot (southwest of .html>. At the Chaffee Planetarium in Grand Canton) with David and Robin Gill as hosts. Wisconsin and Minnesota: The Rapids, evening star shows have been re The Ward Beecher Planetarium at Youngs sin/Minnesota State Meeting was placed by laser light shows. However, to give town State University is celebrating its 30th Friday and Saturday, 25-26, in people a real planetarium show, they have anniversary season this year with a diverse Madison with Geoff Holt as host. The Uni started a Wednesday night double feature: series of programs revealing the wonders of versity of Wisconsin La Crosse Planetarium the comet show and a 45-minute live sky the cosmos and the joys of skywatching. For featured Journey To The Stars (Horwitz show on the current night sky, which all thirty of its seasons, the planetarium has Planetarium; Waukesha, WI) in March. included how to find Comet Hale-Bopp. Pink been guided by the able hands of Warren have completed installation of East Coast Floyd's The Wall is their featured laser light Young and has twice hosted GLPA Confer Controls eqUipment after water the show. They also give a school show called ences, first in 1972 and again in 1991. Rick old control system last summer. Surfing the Solar System, which is about a Pirko, Mike DiMuzio and Warren continue The Minneapolis Planetarium was family who learns about the solar system to bring the joys of astronomy to their class pleased to host the 1996 .,.""rh4>,1"""Cf while surfing the Web. It is designed for es and audiences. members. The final count totaled 118 dele grades 2 to S. The Cleveland Natural History Museum gates. Alan Hale, co-founder of Comet The Longway Planetarium in Flint will and Mueller Planetarium continues an annu Bopp, signed over 60 copies of his new show The Wizard ofOz this summer. You are al series of astronomical lectures, with joint after the conference closed on welcome to visit Longway's webpage at sponsorship by the Cleveland Astronomical Anyone wishing to purchase his . Garry Society and Case Western Reserve Univer contact High-Lonesome Books in Beckstrom of the all new Delta College sity. Comet shows lighted up the domes of New Mexico at (50S) 388-3763. If there

PUBilCATIONS Undine Concannon, London

Those of you with Internet connections will, no doubt, have seen the IPS Web page, together Tom ...... ' .... "" ...... 1"0. Kraupe and Alan Gould All information to be induded should be sent to Tom the Sub-Committee Chair. A word of warning, however, if you submit information about institutions or conferences run someone please make sure you check with that person first, so that we can avoid inaccurate and misleading information aplDealrlflg: allover the as pened in the case of IPS'98. (The information which now appears on this should now be COlrre,ct!) The Special Effects Book is at the printers as I write, so your copies should with arrived. Hope the wait was worth it! The Resources book (a relatively international"Yellow" or "White" pages for those who have is well on the way to duction now. Alan Gould, Dale Smith and Gregg Williams are doing stirling work in pulling it all .. 'VFt'...... - well men.

Susan Reynolds is working on a proposal for a book specially for Planetarians with portables; if "lr\.,.,,.,..,.,:U).rI the IPS would Ush this as a special publication, which means it would be free to all members. Our next ventures may include a book of Astronomical Quotes, and a "perpetual" calendar of astronomical dates. you would like to contribute anything to either of these, please send your ideas to me, or to Jon Bell at Hallstrom 1)1"], ...... "'t-"' ... :; ...... , Indian River Community College, 3209 Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce, Florida. 34981-5599.

40 Planetarian Vol. one who is interested in purchasing the Broman at Stella Nova Planetarium in Falun Anthony "Tony" Jenzano, 10Illgtime Minneapolis Planetarium's two new shows, let people watch Hale-Bopp through a spe tor of the Morehead Planetarium in Honey, I Shrunk the Universe or Amazing cially equipped 10 inch Meade telescope in Hill, North Carolina, away Stargazing, please call Bob or Rod at (612) 372- broad dayUght. The cornet was dearly seen, 22. Jenzano began at the MoreheaCl 6543. even through passing douds. This extraordi when it opened in 1949. He became rli ..,:> .... tr" .. The annual spring meeting of the GLPA nary event took place on 1 April. in 1951, leading the institution Executive Committee was conducted near retirement in 1981. his South Bend, Indiana on Saturday, 3 May Pacific ...... ,""' ...... accomplishments were the astronaut 1997. On 1 january, Dale Smith became Mark your calendars now for the next two ing programs conducted for the """,n'""" President-Elect of IPS after winning last fall's PPA conferences: 24-27 September 1997 at the Gemini, and Apollo astronauts. election. Dale is the second active member of Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Britt Rosse resigned as director GLPA (and of CRAP) and the second Ohioan Hutchinson, Kansas. Kim Arnold is hosting Hopkins Planetarium in .. "V''''''.OJA'' .... , \/'1 "l'cnn I ';1 to serve as IPS President, preceded by the this conference which will obviously be a Roanoke had been selected as site of inimitable jeanne Bishop, whose term was jOint conference with GPPA and other SEP A Conference. 1983-1984. regional associations. PPA members will tor, was concerned that he would not Dr. Walter E. Mitchell/Jr., who retired from receive specific information on registration, to follow with the commitment. the Planetarium and Astronomy Depart hotel and call for papers in the upcoming However after much uo.,; ...... ' ..... 'ALA'''''', ment at Ohio State University, passed away Panorama issue. Flights from the West Coast decided to move forward the conference on 26 July 1996 after a lingering illness. Lisa should be around $200. originally Other plalnetariurlrlS Harmon, Project Coordinator of the Space David Falk is hosting our fall 1998 meeting Virginia as wen as volunteers from thI'OU,gh quest Planetarium at The Children's at the Los Angeles Valley College Plane out the SEP A have offered their Museum in Indianapolis, passed away 7 janu tarium in Van Nuys, California, on 14-18 tance. The conference is scheduled for ary 1997 of natural causes. October. The College is located in the San June of 1998. Fernando Valley on the north side of Los Kris Swanson's planetarium is a hit with Middle Atlantic Planetarium Angeles. The conference hotel will be the the Palm Beach County, Florida schools. Society Airtel Plaza Hotel at the Van Nuys Airport. A facility indudes a refurbished merly at Pensacola Junior and now The annual MAPS conference, MAPS'97, conference theme has not yet been decided, located in Poinciana Elementary School in was held 7-10 May and hosted by Spitz, but will combine technology with astrono Boynton Beach, a magnet school the Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. This year's my. Agenda will include trips to local area entire Kris has the good fortune Margaret Noble address was given by jim points of astronomical interest such as the have extensive production facUities at his Sharp. The title of the talk was Planetariums: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mt Wilson Obser disposal and has involved his students in Entering the Third Millennium. vatory and Disneyland David is inviting the Rocky Mountain, Southwestern, Great Plains producing several shows for the plalflerarl urn. Their first production was Follow the Nordic Planetarium Association and Mexican Associations which will make this another multi-regional conference. Drinking Gourd Based on his initial successes, The 14th annual Nordic Planetarium Con The Hubble Space Telescope slide distribu Kris has plans to continue to involve ference takes place at Sigrid Rudebeck's tion list continues to grow. We are hoping to dents, as it has proved not only to be Junior College in Goteborg 22-24 August. receive post HST repair/upgrade mission incentive for them to be ...... ".. " ...... ".u Pleanery speakers are Curt Roslund, who will slides soon. Contact Jon Elvert at the Lane interested in the pla.ne:tarilur:rl, talk on Nordic archaeoastronomy, and ESD Planetarium, 2300 Leo Harris source of welcome assistance. Torbjorn Urke, who will talk on constella Eugene, OR 97401 for details. Steve Rider has the staff tions of the Nordic Laps. Also planetarians Astronaut Memorial Planetarium in from other parts of the world are invited to Florida. Steve started with the Planetariums " ... "" ... v'''' ..... attend this English-speaking meeting. Planetarium in Orlando, and most 'l!'lAr'pnthy Contact conference host Per Broman at The Russian Planetariums Association he was with the Zeiss Planetarium in [email protected] or fax +46 3125 Conference, devoted to the 40th .,..",,,h'L>Y"C'"'''' Munchen, Germany. 6477 for information and registration. of the 1st Sputnik, will be held 15-16 Within the past year, a number of South Kosmorama Space Theater in BorHinge September this year in Kaluga After the con eastern planetariums have undergone or are opened a new show 26 April, called Kronos. ference, the participants will take part in p .."'A ...... 1!'t refurbishment and several new The theme of the show, written by Hans XXXII Annual Tziolkovskil Conference. facilities have come on-line. These indude Lundstrom, is time. The same day, The AU Russian planetariums took part in the Columbus and Albany, Georgia; 1<:,.."" ...-.1.,...... Futures' Museum opened a new Science International Day of Planetaria. More than Jacksonville, Orlando, Fiction exhibition. 1000 people visited Nizhny Novgorod plane West Palm Beach, Florida; Muscle A new large NPA poster has been pro tarium (projector Skymaster with 8 meter Alabama; and NashvUle, Tennessee. The duced by Cosmonova in Stockholm and was dome) and enjoyed the shows Salut-Mir Ethyl Universe Planetarium in Kl(:nrnolna, distributed to NP A members in May. Alpha, Cassini Project, On jupiter's Moons, Virginia, site of the first LfAllo:.1J>1.(U. Cornet Hale-Bopp was a great success at and Through the Eyes ofHubble (courtesy by upgraded to a Digistar IL will dose later high latitudes, easily seen from mid-March Rob Landis from the Institute of Space Tele in the year for the installation of a new to mid-May (when the evening skies became scope). When the darkness came, thousands dome and other major refurbishment. too bright). At the peak of its performance, of people watched the Comet Hale-Bopp. Hale-Bopp has been the "star" of most many planetariums gave it special attention. planetariums in the region as well as every Erik Andersson at Goteborg's Public Obser .t-.... o".... t-"" ..... Planetarium where. Alan Hale ... please find another one vatory reported the biggest crowds in the Association for us soon! Observatory's history. Hans Carlson and Lars

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian inolt opens in the e·

...... " . . .

Minolta leads all other manufacturers in the f"In',/ClII"'\O'''\lr'Y'I for multimedia equipment. Using the SMPTE control

it is possible to combine the INFINIUMls ...... U(.A.vv all-sky computer graphics projector displays, as well as slide and special effects projectors to create *SPICE Autometion is registered trademark of Sky Skan, Inc.

North America: Minolta Corporation / Planetarium Division 101 Williams Drive Ramsey, N.J. 07446, U.S.A. Tel: (1)-201-934-5347 Fax: (1)-201-818-0498 Southeast Asia: Minolta Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. / Planetarium Division No. 12, Jalan SS 8/2, Sungai Way, 47300, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia, Tel: (60)-3-7761133, 7756541 Fax: (60)-3-7761767 Minolta Planetarium ltd. 2-30, Toyotsu cho, Suita, Osaka 564, Japan Tel: (81 )6-386-2050 Fax: (81 )6-386-2027 female co]mnlut~er voice announces l'One the moment while the screen to the initial view of the site selected. the user interface of 'Mars Rover" is pretty and intuitive. But once on the surface the controls are not at aU obvious. To fly over the site you must click on a white spot that may be visible in the window. If you have make sure connected and turned up because the due you get is the computer voice that says, "Select the light source for Since the of sites are 360 panoramas, this 'light source' could be in any direction, not the part of the seen that you are viewing. If it's not visible information ...... r'uiriA.rl need to out how to move your view tle detail that direction. The interface for this task is not at On the nl"'\<"'H~,,> r an obvious. If you your mouse led

Rom Tech inside the viewer window and hold down ware comes with the .1.; ....'U4,l\, .. U 2945 McMillan, Ste. 128 it outside the VR viewer which also installed San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-6767 window the view will in the RomTech say that 805-781-2250 direction you've moved the mouse. It would Windows 3.1 or Windows a 486 $29.95 (U.S.) shipping and UU'lH...... 1"o be a lot less if this were processor, SVGA, 8 MB of RAM, Platforms: Macintosh and PC/Windows eX1DlainE~d on screen, in a or via the better CD-ROM drive on the PC nl~lttr'''n1 undec$used com]:mtcer get behind the wheel of "Mars Mars related CD-ROMs seem to be the lat Once you start a an electronic users will need a Power Mac est fad in astronomy related software. This music soundtrack, often like disco malchJtne, 10 MB of disk space, 16 may have something to do the possible life music, kicks in as Unfortu$ and a 16-bit traces found last year in a Martian meteorite. there is no voice or text to describe Or, it could be the latest batch of robotic what you are flying over. Also you have no probes that have been sent to Mars. I'd like to control of the speed or view direction during think that it reflects an ageless fascination the flY$overs. The movies run humans have had with the Red Planet. smoothly and are a<,; dramatic as can be "Mars Rover" is a two CD-ROM package C0I1Si(lerLng that are viewed in a'view that provides a multi-media interface to er' frame that's less than half as wide as your three dimensional topography data from fuB computer screen. as you NASA's Viking orbiters. Most plalnetar'iarls the resolution is not very overs useful as a have seen the 3-D of en()U2~h to make the t-U,'_n'''A .. ed with a data PfC)jector, Venus, Mars, and the Earth created by NASA. togo 'Mars Rover" is an attempt to you the same sort of on your desktop computer. A stylized futuristic/alien space tures. ship control acts as an interface to text, If you want stilI pictures, and Apple QuickTime VR more infor$ movies. You start out presumably in orbit mati on about above Mars at a rectangular map of the spot the planet from 0 to 50 of latitude landed (one disk has the 'northern hemisphere' and on you can the other one has the 'southern hemi dkk on a hot sphere'). If you dick on anyone of six longi labeled tude regions, you get that section on the "Info main screen with markers for the available That takes regions to land your spacecraft on. These you to a map-like images of Mars are more artistic screen which than they are useful. There the cornmlter are no place names, contour lines, or other voice announ$ useful You can select your ces as, lithe site by clicking on one of 20 A ..... '''.. UA.,., Central Data indicated on these global surface maps, or Bank". Here select a place name from a text on the you will have right. Once selected for landing a stoic

Vol. 1997 Planetarian

the streets of Pasadena and elsewhere. President.s This will be yet anoth er date, which will be noted in our history Message books, where mankind bridges the cosmic ocean. It is not only the fruit of Thomas W. Kraupe advanced technology, but also the result of our EuroPlaNet predecessors work - and it Rumfordstr. 41 is not just an American triumph. Speaking with 0-80469 Muenchen the words of Frank Bor Germany man when he recalled (49) 89-21031531 the first trip around the Detail of sarcophagus of Va')co da Gama moon: "We leaned on the torians? A great chance especially for plane (49) 89-21031532 fax shoulders of giants and on the knowledge of tariums dose to the seashores! generations. Much of this knowledge was [email protected] Lisbon in Portugal is an especially reward Portuguese". Indeed, Portugal, Spain along ing place for establishing such connections. with England, were the homelands from Greetings. The "Planetario Calouste Gulbekian" is wWch the "astronauts" of the 15th and 16th Just a few days from now, on July 4th, ID part of the Maritime Museum in Belem, a century set sail to distant shores. I think we 4, we are the aliens to land a robot on anoth suburb of this cosmopolitan city. It is only a er planet. NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission as planetarians should have a special interest mere 100 meters away from the sarcophagus in drawing lines to connect current events to will come to a climax and planetary scien of Vasco da Gama. In 1498, this Portuguese historical and cultural backgrounds. tists and enthusiasts will party on in a gigan naVigator opened up the sea route to India, tic celebration of planetary exploration in bringing a century old dream to fruition. 1998 - Year of the Oceans In 1998, five hundred years after that great Next year will not only be the voyage, Lisbon is once more at the centre of year of the IPS conference happen the world's attention, concentrating people ing in one of the great seafaring and political will on lIThe oceans - A Heritage nations - England - but in fact 1998 for the Future" - the theme of the last world will also be the "International Year exposition of the 20th century. The Lisbon of the Oceans" as declared by the World Exhibition - EXPO'98 - which is in United Nations. tended to be a great celebration of the Doesn't that offer us a lot of Oceans, will also mark the first meeting of themes to link our planetariums on formerly distant worlds by means of the sea this "Waterworld" with aquariums, The event will run from May 22nd to Sep oceanographers, ecologists and his- tember 30th, 1998.

An tonio H.M. Rocha de Freitas, marine officer and Planetarium Director (right) with the author EXPO'98 construction site early this year. It will be the most international at the Lisbon Planetarium. Expo ever!

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Plane tar ian 45 EXPO'98 stretches 2 kilometers along the IPS'98 .. about Tagus river bank, only a few minutes from Yes, it's about time to speak about IPS'98. the centre of Lisbon. With more than 120 Just before writing this I had the chance participating countries, this exposition will meeting with Undine Concannon, our host be the most international ever. It will for IPS'98, in London. I can teU you that I was approach the theme from various different very impressed to see what is being prepared perspectives - science, entertainment, arts for us at the conference site. and ecology: It will be a global reflection on And you will love this city with it's band the future of the oceans and the total expect width stretching from old traditions at ed number of visitors is 15 million! Buckingham Palace to the virtual extrava Will there be Indian planetariums con ganzas at the Trocadero! Besides the trip to necting with Portuguese speaking planetari Greenwich and Stonehenge (as part of the ums among them ...1 It seems to me that it is conference) and the many astronomical sites continue to encourage PV,"'Y''I.;rh..."rI" not only worth thinking about planetarium you don't want to miss in the Post-Con activities related to the theme of EXPO'98 - it ference Tour QodreH Bank, Lord Ross' Spanish and Portuguese speaking world - and in India - to continue with their CO()Peratilon is certainly worth going there and experienc Telescope), there are many sites within the ing not only EXPO'98 and the Maritime city limits which are worth visiting for a within IPS and to also think about Museum, but also an enormous cultural her planetarian, among them one of my future IPS conferences beyond the year 2002. It is my great to report that our mem- itage and one of the most beautiful cities in favourites: the splendid Natural History the world! Museum with its "Life" and "Earth" Galleries. bers "down-under" are ...... UL'HI"U,I~ I encourage all distant "planetarium navi work to form the first association for Watch out for the next issue of the ?ators" to travel across the oceans to Europe tariums in the Southern I would Planetarian: In the September issue our host m summer 1998 - plan eady for extra time in will have a major article about the confer be especially if I could report you Lisbon and at IPS'98 in London. You can be ence, givPlg you all the background info - next year that IPS council received the sure to find the theme of navigation - and of request for the first affiliation of an associa plus giving you the chance for your input to space and time - beautifully enchanted in the conference program. IPS'98 win be tion with members on the southern hemi both places: Our hosts at IPS'98 will take us sphere! designed to offer not only paper sessions - it to London's famous centre of time and space will put a special emphasis on thematic dis - to the Old Royal Greenwich Observatory. cussions and workshops with hands-on This is where time begins: since 1884 the material. It is a pleasure to see some more fruits of whole world has set its clocks to the time of Working closely with the IPS officers, our the enormous volunteer work our day on the Meridian of Greenwich. And as host is ensuring that you will get the most Publications Committee and of many IPS for navigation, if it weren't for that Obser for your money and your creative contribu members who contributed! As a benefit of vatory, we wouldn't know where in the tions and I am pretty sure IPS'98 will be a your IPS membership, you just received world we were (many of us who have read splendid conference not to miss! will receive shortly) three ... vaUILI!\;; Dava Sobel's bestseller Longitude will finally revised and uP,Gat:ed pUDU,cattons. have a chance to see Harrison's first pages of all three of these new pubUc:ations chronometer, which allowed ships to know New Associations - New Affiliations? can be found on the IPS web site their exact position). Many thanks our I already mentioned the link between Publications Undine Concannon, who India and Portugal - it strikes me again! had the burden of coordinating these pro jects! 1. The new version of the Handbook. Thanks to all members who shared their ideas on how to build a special effects tor using rather simple tools. With many planetariums fighting budgetary ...... r.hl"...... and still a lot of effects which can't be done Wi.th vid~o or laser in a cost-effective way, thIS publIcation is still very

46 Planetarian Vol. inCiU(lesalso web IPS Web subcommittee is also instal~ these web addresses links on our IPS site under "0 "'''''''.,.~~--"

the IPS web site on their thanks to the Resource Coordinators - Alan Dale Smith and Willi.ams - with thanks to His and volunteer work with the data on his made this

If you have send them to our IPS President who for now will be the of that database. Extra of the Resource can be purchased for $20 each - a valuable tool for any Outreach. She is in that field!

wonder where we are with with IPS is treated like the newspapers World Planetariums. and receives of the latest Hubble slides This to be a very COInplex with the press release. Dupli4:atllon one because we first wanted to the distribution for the IPS members in two databases which were so far sel)ar;ated association is handled within that orSl~aniisa the database and the dirlectcJrv tion. database - into one database on FileMaker As of this 3.0, the same on which we now also our Resource Database. An enormous amount of ...... ,-1 ..... ,~ .. new web sites and ernlaU-ad.dn~ss~~s. a

Thanks to our Treasurer and M(!mlbeI'Shj[p Chairman Shawn Laatsch's hard to hold the new and imDr<)V(~d your hands soon. Please check our web site for the latest news on this ca tion. In the future, for your convenience, you will be able to your entry for the IPS Directory a form for you on our web site. your entry in the can be accurate if you Shawn informed With the support of Europlanetarium in Genk (Be~lgiurrl). European up. But this is to become opleraUonaI no earlier than late this year. I will about this in more detail in a later message - also about the for new .... "hlir">_ Hons we are for the future (as discussed at the council in]une).

The slide distribution service an'anged with the Science Institute in Welcome to Marie Radbo at be(:onnirlg both a model and an who is the new chair of the revived IPS encouragement for other institutions to sup uage Committee. The cmnmlitt4~ port IPS members in a similar fashion. On toglethc~r will the behalf of all IPS members I want to especi.ulv sibiHUes of translation at conferences and thank Pme at the Office of Public publishi.ng relevant articles in I"''''.' .... ''''''''',''' .. addition to ..... ~:;U""'lA, Vol. 1997

column's first item. anything else, for that matter, i",-II1,rli ..". What's New music cues, sound effects, etc.) One screen The 5criptRiter represents one paragraph; you write the You know the trouble we have finding copy, key to the other column, and write the cues (or vice versa), then hit enter to bounce Jim Manning computer software that can actually and eas ily allow you to write the script on one side to the next empty screen format for the sec Taylor Planetarium of the page and the visual and audio cues on ond set of paragraphs. Each set Museum of the Rockies the other, in a way that can easily be manip is numbered as you hit return, so when ulated and changed? liThe ScriptRiter" may you're done, you end up with a series of con Montana State University just be the answer. secutive screens containing the palra~rar)hs Bozeman, Montana 59717 liThe ScriptRiter" is a word processor soft in order. ware package available from MBC Images, There are a number of nice editing fea 6009 West Leonard Road, Coopersville, tures which make the program great for the angst of scriptwriting. Using various Wen-have you aU survived the comet? As Michigan 49404, telephone 616-837-9441. It's functions, you can bounce almost instanta it recedes from the sun under the watchful a user-friendly way to write scripts as pairs of neously to any paragraph par you you eyes of our Southern Hemisphere colleagues, paragraphs (one for sCript and one for AV can swap paragraph pOSitions, delete sec it's time to turn to other cosmic matters. cues) which can then be formatted into fair tions, insert sections, import sections from Mars Pathfinder, for instance. If all has gone ly conventional script pages or in other other scripts, export sCripts or ele wen and continues to do so-if it doesn't pull clever ways. ments, and so on. There's a clock in the cor a Mars Observer, if its airbags deploy, and if it I had an opportunity recently to play ner that will keep track of the total time doesn't hit a really sharp, pointy rock or oth with a demo version of the package, and it you've spent writing-which is not some erwise have problems, we should have in just has a lot of advantages to the old way of thing I'm sure I want to know, since I spend a a few weeks another toehold on the planet writing scripts. After starting with a color console screen, you bounce into the "Editor" great deal of time staring at the screen. But Mars. there's also another time-keeper which will With luck, Pathfinder and Sojourner and which takes you to the basic screen format for writing: two equal columns for writing keep track of the total estimated time for Mars Global Surveyor still en route may pro someone to read the script, based on an esti vide us with insights on the Red Planet, send copy, one to serve as the "audio" side (for mate of reading pace which you can deSig ing us scurrying to review and revise and writing the words the narrator will say) and nate. And that is one of my favorite features, maybe rewrite our Mars show scripts. If so, I the other to serve as the "visual" side (for since it can give you a good sense of how have just the tool for you to consider in this writing descriptions or cues for visuals-or

Vol. 26, No.2, June 1997 Planetarian 49 you're doing in terms of show length. You length using lithe method of linked files," can choose to not show either or both. can print to disk in standard or non-standard Robert Haag is out with a new 12th Once you have your basic script, or if you ASCII, and is compatible with laser or ink jet anniversary edition of his meteorite want to print out what you have, or see how printers (dot matrix printers will print very called "Field Guide of Meteorites/' a long it is in terms of pages, you can go into slowly in graphics mode). full-color catalog that is more than a cat the IIFormatter" section of the program, The program is also available in Mac alog. Haag has examples of most every type which allows you to format the paragraphs Classic (for older Macs) and mM MS-DOS ver of meteorite class (including a few tantaliz in pages based on format elements that you sions. The purchase price for the Macintosh ing bits of the Zagami, one of the SNC mete can set on the spot, or set in advance and and Windows versions is $145 U.S, The price orites believed by some to be Martian in ori save as I'templates" for regular use base on for Mac Qassic and MS-DOS versions is $125 gin and which have no doubt gone up what your needs or tastes are. There are lots U.s., I believe. Add $520 U.s. for shipping and mightily in price since last August), present of choices: you can format in the script/cue handling. ed in lovely color presentation shots with columns like a "normal planetarium script, Scriptwriters, check out "The ScriptRiter!" specific deSCriptions. The publication is also or format to print out just the narration, or Contact as given above for more informa loaded with tales of Haag's meteorite-hunt just the visual cues. You can create a story tion or a demo disk. Special thanks to nm ing exploits aroWld the globe with accompa- board format which provides the visuals Gutsch for alerting me about this package. paragraphs next to little boxes, and so on. You have choices of font, hoe to title, how to number pages, whether the narration will go on the right side or left side, etc. The para graph pairs are formatted with the numbers assigned at the time of writing, but they can be eliminated if you like. There are also assorted advanced techniques and tips for using the program and even for writing audiovisual scripts. I must admit that writing in paragraphs instead of pages, which is what I'm used to doing, seems a bit odd at first. I'm used to see ing what's written above as I write the next sentence. But the manual/tutorial makes some excellent points-namely, that you can scron up to access the previous paragraph about as fast as you can look up at it in a page format, and you can bounce around among the script's paragraphs with ease-as quickly and perhaps quicker than you can scroll to a paragraph three pages away. And you can always see the script formatted as pages any time you like by popping into the formatter. Once you get used to it, I think it would work quite well. This is a nice program, very easy to use, with some great features, and well worth checking out for the script writers among us. It's available in Mac and IBM-compatible for mats. The reqUirements for the Mac version are a Macintosh with 68000/20/30/40 CPU or Power Mac in emulation mode (a special Power Mac version is available; I ran the demo copy on a Power Mac 7200/90 and it ran quite nicely), System 7.1 to 7.S, color monitor with 600x400 minimum resolu tion, and 2 megabytes RAM. The program will have a file size of up to 999 pairs of para graphs in memory, can print to disk in stan dard or non-standard ASCII, and is compati ble with laser or ink jet prin ters. The IBM-compatible version requires Windows 3.1 or greater, a color monitor with 640x480 minimum resolution, and 2 megabytes RAM. The program will have a file size of up to 254 paragraph pairs in mem ory (but will print scripts of unlimited 50 nying photos, and useful bits of information professionals to help increase the p01tenUal on meteorite types in general, tektites, the of their programs to make significant contri process of etching for iron-nickel varieties, butions to the search. conference in Osaka last summer. meteorite ages, Tunguska, a glossary of terms, Considering that the Society suggests that that can come in and so on. There's lots here to see and learn only about 10% of larger near-earth objects shape or size-at least on the outside! and lust after. and even fewer of the small ones have been accoun t foHows ... In addition to meteorite specimens, Hag discovered, it seems a noble goal. The Society "Those of us who were fortunate also sells novelty items including medallions hopes to speed up the process in light of to attend IPS 96 are still enchanted made of iron meteorite scrap, watches with modest government funding. warm hospitality and imoe<:ca'ble malllfl.ers faces made of etched iron slices, and "aster Adriana Ocampo of the Jet Propulsion of our hosts. We were oid belt" which is a belt with conchos made Laboratory will coordinate the program, received at many but of Gibeon meteorite material, and gem-like with a selection advisory committee includ pened to visit one very faceted peridot crystals derived from palla ing near-earth object scientists Richard that nobody else with the sites, Binzel, Clark Chapman, Andrea Carusi, and "I was unable to the post-<:ofllfer'ence Meteorites ain't cheap, but Haag's prices Brian Marsden. The project is being conduct tour, but after the conference are competitive, I think. Prices range from ed in cooperation with the Spaceguard boarded the Shinkansen bullet train for about $2 U.S. per gram for common and Foundation, a European-based organization where I spent two days plentiful types up to about $150 per gram for which promotes the discovery of these Ken Wakamatsu-a fenow researcher who rare or special types, with the Zagami frag objects. like me chases redshifts of galaXies half hid- ments in a stratospheric class of their own at For more information or for application den the southern Ken and $2,000 U.S. per gram. Based on weight, speci gUidelines, contact the Society at 818-793- are in fact mens themselves run from as little as $20-$40 5100 or bye-mail at . Japan was an ideal opportunity to see thousands for the big chunks, for good-sized scanning equipment he has set up at the uni pieces of pallasite, or for rare specimens. The Film Projectors versity in Gifu, and to compare notes. medallions are $250 apiece and the asteroid Not long ago, I received an e-mail message IIBy the second as our discussions con- belts will cost you $500. The paHasite gem from Alex Lavin of the West rex company tinued, Ken was driving me around the stones run about $1,000 per carat. Quantities describing Iistate-of-the-art" 35mm/70mm countryside. We visited the atmo vary, and are sold on a first-come, first-served fUm projectors that his company makes for sphere of a Buddhist temple, had lunch, then basis. applications in large-format theaters and continued into mountainous terrain. Ken I've had occasion to order meteorites from planetariums. He says the projectors can then announced that we were to visit a small Haag for our museum on several occasions hold more than SO minutes of 8 perf/70mm planetarium. It seemed an unlikely (and even bought one myself), and I've film (24 frames per second) without needing we were following deep valleys thI'Ough found him very easy to work with and the loop bins or platter systems; that a single pro forested slopes. We drove over a crete dam wall then round its "",c'",,"un; .. specimens top-notch. We even got a bullion jector can show 4/35, 5/70, 8/70, or 10/70 film cube-sized piece of Zagami about nine years at speeds of 0-60 frames per second; that 180 before following further up the Valley. ago at a great price and are thinking of dis frames per second forward or rewind can be "Quite suddenly as we came round eOf playing it rather like the Hope Diamond achieved through the gate; that they include ner, there in the valley above the river was next year-which it now may apprOXimate a special Westrex constant Tension film han stunning and immaculate castle. in value! From our experience, I can certain dling system that gives high print that Above its masonry base, ly recommend him as an excellent source to the projector footprint is only 2 feet by 1.5 cal terraced structures rose ~b"waf(i,,--an meet your meteorite needs. feet ( m by m) with the projector just 5 feet ( beautiful of architecture. To get a copy of the gUide or for more "That's the planetarium" said Ken. I could m) tan; that the projectors can be op~era1ted information, contact Robert A. Haag, P.O. automatically and require minimal mainte it. Box 27527, Tucson, Arizona 85726 USA, tele nance, "In fact the building was not ancient, but phone 520-882-8804, fax 520-743-7225, e I didn't see any planetariUms listed among almost brand new - the housing for a mail: . You can companies ordering film visit his web site at . there were a wide variety of theme parks and similar Asteroids sorts of entertainment and Going from the chips off the old blocks to leisure-time sites. You can the old blocks themselves: a little while back, check out the Westrex web I received a press release from The Planetary site at , or Society announcing a new project called the contact Mr. Lavin at liNear-Earth Object Grant Program," designed [email protected] for more to provide grant awards to promote the dis information. covery of asteroids which may one day threaten to give earth a really bad afternoon. Planetarium in a The desire is to increase the rate of discovery, permit wider participation in the endeavor Here, a guest piece ... by amateurs and observers in developing Tony Fairall from South countries, and to provide seed funding to Africa supplies the foHow-

Vol. 26, No.2, June Planetarian tarium and science museum. The Pujihashi will serve to bring its attention to my fenow Finally •.. science center is an ideal place for astrono planetarians, and thereby I can say thank That's it for this time. As we wait for news my. At night, the mountains hide much of you to its director, Mr. Akitaka Ogoo and his from Mars, enjoy the season (depending on the light from nearby cities, making the sky staff." your hemisphere). And as always, until next relatively dark. A large reflecting telescope, time '0' what's new? available for hire, was just then being * installed in an observatory build ing a short distance from the cas tle. The observatory is comple mented by the planetarium and museum. liThe square base and tapering structure of a Japanese castle is, of course, a sensible shape to accom modate a planetarium dome. At ground level, there is little space to spare between the planetarium chamber and the outer walls, but stairs lead upward to where some three levels of the museum fill in the remaining volume of the cas tle. "We were warmly received by the director and staff who demonstrated the planetarium and conducted us on a tour of the museum and observatory. The planetarium is a Minolta, work ing in what I think was a 12 metre dome-a slightly smaller version of the facility than the one I am used to, but with just as a good quality, if not better, in its sky projection. The science muse um was impressive, in that most of the exhibits have been designed and built in house, on relatively modest budgets-yet they are very effective. IIPor example, a dramatic field of stars in a darkened section proved to be nothing more than a cardboard panel, drilled with many holes, fitted in a window so that the daylight provided back illumination. Elsewhere were exhibits to show the differ ent designs of small telescopes; models were made up with clear plastic tubes, so their optical components were apparent, but which you could also look Planetarium Concert Management through. There was also an exhibit to demonstrate the appearance A company dedicated to the Promotion of Concerts in Planetarians of the night sky with and with seeking to expand their Special Activities Program. out light pollution.

II As always in Japan, one was Now on tour in Europe almost embarrassed by the hospi tality. I was presented with small "THE tJLTIMATJE PIANO EXPJERIlENCE" Direct Booking: p.e.M. Tel/Fax 004533147005 gifts, having been caught totally unprepared to reciprocate. I hope however that this short account See Tycho Brahe Planetarium Web-Site: of my delightful visit to Fujihashi http.//www.astro.ku.dk/tycho.htmi click on" Program "D then "Srerlige Activities"

52 Planetarian Vol. 26, No. june 1997 the event to life for the reader Rochester (New York) Museum them feel they are there watching it happen. Center. Restoration of the int:ennsllip to York Clamann (Abilene Christian made the moral ".. v,~~~ .. University, Abilene, Texas) and wife Andrea RMSC's new President, Kate ...... ,'u .."'u, who should have their second grandchild by VP of Finance and Administration,

the time you read this. Beach; and cOlnti:nuing L.U.UUH_A,aJl from the Rochester cmnmlunlitv, People on the Move: Those of you who subscribe After 27 years in the planetarium/astrono York State Conservationist 1YLJ .... U ... A.~.... Washington He has been appointed to a senior position in taTium, Schenectady, New York). of the Winter has 85004 the California Community Colleges state wide system, as Director of System Advance deSCriptions and anecdotes on the (602) 716-2078 ment and Resource Development. Larry will the stars. (602) 716-2099 fax be responSible for developing new resources Steve has (money, eqUipment, personnel) for the 106 for a new Iaser-~C11S.i{. ~,"v7h",,') community colleges and the statewide sys SW AP President Donna Hopefully, everyone survived the big tem office in California, developing the son lSD, Dallas Texas) spring rush of events; between Astronomy overall technology plan for the system, rep "Horne on the Day, Comet Hale-Bopp, and the usual tide of resenting the community colleges on several skies for Comet students in April, I'm certain that everyone statewide and national boards and commis has had a busy time. Ryan Wyatt (Plane sions, including California's Virtual Univer Oh give me a home tarium Manager here at the Arizona Science sity, developing a method of disseminating Where the comets do roam Center) and I have also been preoccupied best practices through the Internet, and dis And make a celestial display! with opening events at the new center and covering new planets and comets. His office Where never is heard developing and presenting our new shows. is in Sacramento and he can be reached at A discouraging word So if this column seems a little shorter than 916-322-0882, email: [email protected]. And the skies ARE NOT CLOUDY ALL usual, fear not ... things will return to normal Larry will continue to serve on the Board of DAY! some month soon. I would also like to apolo the Chabot Observatory and Science Center, gize to the members of SWAP for not turn but has stepped down as Chair of the Archi Please, if you have any information ing in anything to Regional Roundup. tecture Committee. I have taken a position at the Arizona would like to see in the next UU.JU\./U:l>, to me by July 1st. Congratulations Science Center as Assistant Planetarium Manager. Aaron Guz:m.m is now filling in at to Rick Greenawald (Faulkner Planetarium the planetarium at the Don Harrington in Twin Falls, Idaho) and wife Lori, who have Discovery Center in Amarillo, Texas. announced the birth of their twin daughters For the first time in the history John French (formerly Planetarium Pro KyJie Rose and HannahJo. Kylie and Hannah we have devised the tools - unmanned space duction Assistant at Buhl Planetarium in arrived on January 16th at 9:10 and 9:11 am vehicles and radio telescopes to search Pittsburgh, PA) has accepted a position at the respectively. They were born premature at extraterrestrial life. I would be new planetarium in Corsicana, Texas! 32 weeks, but both are doing exceptionally ashamed of my civilization it with these tools well. They join big sister Mackenzie who is we the cosmos. Did you know 31/2 years old Carl to Alan Friedman (Director of the New Some of you may have wondered what York Hall of Science), who was honored by has become of Jim Mullaney, formerly and To consider the earth the the American Association for the Advance Editor with Sky & Telescope magazine, and in is as absurd as to assert that in ment of Science (AAAS) with the AAAS more recently of South Carolina Jim is alive an entire field sown with millet Award for Public Understanding of Science and weB, and living in Pennsylvania, and and Technology. Dr. Friedman was recently runs (among other things) a business seIUng - Metrodoros named as the 1996 recipient of the award, celestial and Earth globes for Spherical Con which recognizes leading scientists for their cepts, Inc. Jim Mullaney, P.O. Box 1146, Upon one tree there are many fruits, and in one outstanding contributions to the populariza Exton, PA 19341-1146 or caB him at (610) kingdom many people. How unreasonable it tion of science. 2890-7183. would be to suppose that, beside the heavens to Steve Tidey (formerly of The Plane Steve Fentress (Director, Strasenburgh and the earth which we can see, there are no tarium, Central Museum, Southend-On-Sea, Planetarium, Rochester New York) has other heavens and no other earths? Essex, England), who won the $250 third announced that after a two-year hiatus in Mu prize in the Griffith Observatory's annual the program, the Strasenburgh Planetarium science writing competition, sponsored by will once again offer a one-year planetarium Rockwell (now Boeing). He wrote a piece internship, beginning September 1997 and Horatio, than nr"'ElY.<>nJ'nl about the asteroid impact that probably running through August 1998. The Stras helped to kill off the dinosaurs, and brought enburgh Planetarium is a department of the

Vol. 26, No.2, June Planetarian my, it's not a star. Look at the tail. Is that what caU that off the spot N' the tail?" "It stretches a ways across the You know, it's beautiful I don't remember lAHUAHAlUj,F. read these instructions at home, but I forgot. between scientists, science writers, and the announces the sp()n~;orshlp Dam!" Boeing of an annual of awards for the best articles in astronomy, -----~---J "You're right. We should have brought space science. First is $750. articles will be oub1i:she~d one. Let's just get out and look around Oops, Observer. Articles must a little chillier than I thought it would be _ well, let's just see if ... hey! I think I see it! Awards Committee It What does the brochure say? says, 'the c/o Griffith ()h"pn"~tl"\rv comet will look like a fuzzy spot of light 2800 East f"I"h('o ...""'t-." .... ,, with a fainter, fuzzy tail extending upward Los I"\lii"'~lt::'l>. California 90027 from the horizon.'" "Honey, do you think that's it? Look at or visit the web site at that. Whew! That'sgotta be it! You're "

54 Planetarian Vol. A planetarium is a spectacle, an event, but above all a tool which provides amusement in the service of knowledge. To meet all these needs, RS AUTOMATION INDUSTRIE, thanks to its specialization in automation, has developed a complete range of planetariums, all designed to provide a specific and immediately operational solution.

COSMODYSSEE II SN 95 SN 88 II

The portable A planetarium Just like a planetarium on the road grown-up

::::: R.S. AUTOMATION ••••••••• Z.I. de la Vaure - B.P. 40 - 42290 SORBIERS - FRANCE Tel. +33 4 77 53 30 48 - Fax. +33 4 77 53 38 61 DIGISTAR©II Is THRILLING PLANETARIUM VISITORS AROUND THE WORLD

AND THE LIST GROWS

WE'RE EXCITED THAT THESE PRESTIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS WILL BE USING DIGISTAR II TO ENTERTAIN AND EDUCATE THEIR AUDIENCES. DIGISTAR II IS THE WORLD'S ONLY DIGITAL PLANETARIUM SYSTEM FOR DOME THEATERS. CALL US TODAY TO FIND OUT WHAT ALL THE EXCITEMENT IS ABOUT!