The Union of Venus & Mars

On January 30, 2017, our sister world Venus completes her march towards the red planet Mars, a baby moon tagging along at her heels. And on this day, this daughter of Venus will march toward my own love and partner, a man of Mars. The very symbols of these ancient wanders marking man & wife in harmony with the cosmos. At 1:30 on 1/30, beneath the radiance of our sun and the hidden brilliance of these two worlds, these two Earthlings become one.
For better or worse, we are ready for this adventure.
We welcome the Union of Venus & Mars! 

- My final post as S.S.

My View Indoors

I'd like to post a note, for the record, of the beautiful view I see daily as I walk to and from my office. A stellar masterpiece glistening with silent energy and beckoning my mind beyond the clouds. Its a mini dome in the lobby replicating the larger 40 ft dome of the Bishop Planetarium.
So many stories begin here...

 I'd also like to post a note, for the record, that the frequency of published blog posts is inversely related to the number of hours I spend indoors gazing digital stars. Celebrating 50 years of the Bishop planetarium in 2016. Big, important history, big important stories to tell.

But alas I don't want to lapse so long I risk losing the blog or worse, forgetting I have it, so here is another fun pic found on the phone:

FeNi (our museum's hunky Campo de Cielo meteorite fragment) lovingly polished by visiting 4th grade friends. You can't even see the meteorite there are so many little human hands! I love it! 

The Unblinking Eye of Mars

Click to enlarge

Tis the season in our brother world's orbit when its face looks brighter than ever. Swinging into position behind the Earth so that it is opposite the sun in our sky, Mars will appear fully illuminated to our Earthbound eyes. Just as a Full Moon sits behind the Earth and receives full sunlight, so too does Mars this season. This is why the placement is called opposition.

The real treat comes in the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 15. At around 1:30 A.M. the Full Moon, fully illuminated by the Sun, will pass into the shadow of the Earth. Scattering the white sunlight of the Sun, the shadow will cast a dark red cloak upon the surface of our Moon. Bathed in this red blood light, the Moon will nearly disappear from view for over an hour before it pulls itself out of the heavenly darkness and is reborn into the full radiant of pure sunlight. All of this happens in just the right spot, opposite the sun, where Mars is hanging out.

Playing around with the Bishop Planetarium's amazing Digistar5 star system, I ran a simulation of the lunar eclipse with Mars unnaturally giant in the background. Here La Luna drifts into the shadow...lingers in darkness...and then emerges safely on the other side...

1:30 am 4/15/14 

3:00 am 4/15/14

4:30 am 4/15/14 

Feeling adventurous? Brew yourself that perfect cup of coffee at 11:55 P.M. on Monday April 14, go out and find yourself a nice dark spot to watch the celestial drama of our Moon being swallowed whole only to reemerge as glorious and full as ever.

Dark Side of Oz: The Sync Experience

You've heard of it before...now see it for yourself: 

Pink Floyd's iconic Dark Side of the Moon in sync 

with The Wizard of Oz. 

Sonic wizardry meets full prism Technicolor.

Pink Floyd online http://www.pinkfloydonline.com/dark-side-of-the-moon-wizard-of-oz/

Sometime last year I convinced my boss to let us tryout this synchronization project in our planetarium. The Bishop has a deep history of Floyd and so the mission was green lighted. I had heard of the sync for years. Begin playing Dark Side upon the MGM lion's 3rd roar. Sit back and watch the film and music lineup.

But there is a problem, Dark Side only plays 42 minutes while Oz is 102 minutes. What do you do at minute 43? Some suggest playing Dark Side over again. Some suggest turning to Wish You Were Here or Animals. Neither of those were a perfect fit.

And so began my journey down the yellow brick road, each night listening to my Floyd albums with newly tuned ears, listening for stories, emotions, moments which run parallel to the journey of our four screen friends. In the end, I complied a list of songs which sang to me the missing links. I sat down and scripted the sync out to get an idea of timing and jive. IT -WAS -  PERFECT. If you play the songs I suggest, with the timed version I suggest, you simply hit PLAY at the 3rd lion roar and watch as the synchronization takes over your world.

The version you see before you debuted at the Bishop Planetarium January 25, 2014. In addition to the amazing technicolor of the film and the sweet sound system of our dome, I also flew the audience around the universe using our state-of-the-art technology. Past planets and moons, dodging asteroids and beyond our own galaxy, it was literally an out of this world experience.

In all honesty, I can take little credit for this added sync. Pairing one of the greatest scripts and cinematography films of all time to one of the best bands to ever create music, pretty straightforward stuff. I felt like the music itself was leading the compilation, I simply had to organize share it with the world. I dedicated this sync experience to my dad, Michael E. Sprague who put the love of Floyd and the night sky in me. And I rededicate now to also my mom, Angela Sprague, for putting the love of Oz in me and always daring me to dream and fly higher and higher...

And so, dear Floyd fans, I welcome you to the Dark Side of Oz...

** Details**

1) I chose to use Spotify as my music player. I pay for the ad-free version and I love it. All of the tracks I used were the digitally remastered versions. For a straightforward Dark Side sync you can use the album for a more legit experience. However, if you want to use the medley I offer, you will need access to many albums back to back.

2) Hit PLAY upon the MGM lion's 3rd roar

3) For fun, you can slide the dvd volume up from time to time to accentuate your favorite movie lines. This is dramatic and snaps viewers back and forth in and out of their timespace. The audience loved it. 

3) I've provided you the song titles, album, length of song (in case multiple versions are available) and the movie sync time. For the live performance I needed it to be perfect. Plus I am an anal sob, with the exception of two songs where I was always so mesmerized by the screen I never got a sync count. 

3) Yes, I do recycle Brain Damage and Eclipse for the end of the show.
Can you get a better finale ever?

Enjoy, friends. 

Check out pinkfloyd.com for a trip up the vortex of  floyd spacetime fun.

Pink Floyd Online 

Goodbye, Old Friend

Inverted SkyScan & Projector D

This morning welcomed rain and thunder tearing around town like a hurricane. Yet within the thick walls of the Bishop Planetarium, no sound could be heard. I fired up the dome as usual, but for one last time. Ctrl 10 Ent. Turn on all. Yes. Cntrl 9 Ent. Start Digital Sky. Slide right. Green box check. Inverted sky grid. Cntrl 10 Ent. Projector D shut down.

Tonight, after one last stelliferous star talk hurrah, the 7 projectors A,B,C,D,E,F & G will be shut down for the final time. The harmony of their projection, the hum and buzz of their fans will find silence and peace in the last soft beams of the hazy purple light. And following, a moment of silence before all hell breaks loose as the team arrives to lay to rest our old machinery and deliver a new life. The Bishop Planetarium is entering a new era of technical upgrade. This era buries the past in thick dust, bringing brilliant resolution and clarity to the dark rounded corners. Tearing us from the comfort of our earthbound throne, we are beamed across the universe to the very edge of it all. Spiraling back in as if drawn to the drain, our travels will encourage all manner of exploration, investigation and discovery.

Dome center, Projector G

Digistar 5, an Evan & Sutherland creation. I do not know all of the details of this new system yet, but from behind the door I see a light so bright and wonderful its as if I've seen that rare meteor fire streak across the heavens and causing floods of inquisitive daydreaming. The future is here at the Bishop. The greatest of man's achievement in the planetarium arts. Though the sky is thick with clouds and fury tonight, our glowing lights resurrect the forgotten stars and witness the dance of the wanders. I sit in community with Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Cellarius, Kepler, Newton, Messier, Herschel, Hubble, Sagan and all the other men and women of history who have looked up at the sky, wondered, contemplated, discussed and created systems from observation. And now, with the sophisticated tools of our time, we look out into the deepest of beyond, bending and gathering light with a tool more powerful than any one tool or organism ever created. And the view will be breathtaking. I can't freaking wait.

Jupiter Venus Mercury

For the last three nights, I have faithfully journeyed to the shore to give witness and homage to the brilliant dancing glow of our sister worlds, Jupiter Venus Mercury. And for the last three nights, clouds as dense as the ocean itself poured their libations directly upon our heavenly kin. So I spent some time on Stellarium (a free star map software program available online) mapping out what I missed and making this cool mural.

Beginning in late May, when Venus began her ascension past the sun and into our darkening twilight, the paths of the three planets were destined to meet, forming the beautiful and rare CoNjUnCtIoN. An ironic intersection of time / space where to our Earthbound eyes the gentle wanderers appear to head toward collision and certain death. Yet in the sprawling metropolis of solar satellites, there is currently little fear of such destruction. (While rouge asteroids and comets travel to the beat of their own orbits, and occasionally make contact with a planet, the solar system has chilled out greatly since its earlier party days and few mega collisions happen anymore.) So while we watch Venus shooting up like a Chinese lantern on a windless night, inching past Jupiter and mingling with the usually shy Mercury, take note that this brilliant ballet is nothing more than a quirk in our earthbound skies. And I love every moment.

See You on the Dark Side of the Moon

When I was a little girl, I lived near a pasture clearing in the deep woods of Florida. Thick pines and soft deciduous trees lined my little world and at night, the darkness of night hung low and personal. My young mind wandered and wondered through the clouds and stars, filling in my own treatise and creation myths. I thought that the sky was a dark colander, tipped over the Earth and hiding back the brilliant white light that peeked through the tiny holes. I dreamed of flying beyond in the brightness, my body as light as the beams themselves. I saw the birds flying above the trees and whispered my ideas to them so they could fly high and examine the world as I could not.
I remember seeing three little stars clustered together and thought of my two best friends and I, hanging in the sky forever together. Me, Violeta and Linda Estrella.
At some point in my ponderings, my father bought me a telescope. Mechanically challenged and disinclined to measurements, I wrapped my attention around the colorful posters hidden folded in the box. Our solar system in dust rings around a burning sun. A giant green moon mountainous and glowing.
I didn't know many facts those days. I could not have told you how many days it takes for our Earth to move around the sun once. I had no notion the moon moved separately each moment. The stars' pictures were evident enough to me, though written in no book ever or since. And the telescope, it lay in pieces in a drawer, its red shell a warning sign to my novice youth. But my mind was ablaze with spinning planets, drifting dust comets and the peace and strength of the moon.
I don't know why exactly I have such a deep link of my father and sister moon, waxing away the shadows. It would be years after his death that I would fully embrace and understand the pull she has on my heart and the power she has on our Earth. I can't truthfully recall a time we looked at the moon together, through my two small pieces of glass, though I have memory flickers I dare say spring from my imagination. But when I see that moon, and when I think of that man, my heart swells and one particular heart string hums a melody of love.

My father died six years ago of viral meningitis, brain damage. Though he smoked his whole life, ate ramen noodles and drank rotations of Coffee and Mellow Yellow and broke a sweat only at the heat of his wild hot sauce, the great end did not take his lungs, liver, kidneys or heart. The great end took his brain. In two days his masterful machine slowly melted under the pressure and greed of the undead virus. Eyes open, calling calling, eyes weak, fighting fighting, eyes closed, forever.

In the pain and fear and numbfoundness that followed, my heart whispered to his, "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."

We played the Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon at his wake in the funeral home. Breathe, Time, Great Gig in the Sky...Brain Damage, Eclipse. I read the album cover with silent understanding of what I may never really know. The beauty and sadness and ultimateness of the universe pulsing through the melody and lyrics like the gentle heart of the mother's womb.

A mysterious link connects my father and I and the moon. A link found as common as in the ocean shells and sunflower petals and moisure clouds and ladybug dots. A link that tells us, We are One. And like the moon, we will rise again.

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forbodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon
The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon