Prehistoric Planetarium of Lascaux

17,000 years ago our human ancestors gazed upon the same earthbound sky we now enjoy. Armed with growing brains and wild imagination, they created rich paintings upon cave walls. They depicted the most important events and spectacles of their age. Animals and rituals of the hunt, lush and beautiful vegetation, and of course the greatest wonder in nature: the human form. But among the images another sort are found --thousands of years later our contemporary eyes recognize this illustrations as common nightly visions. Sketched in brilliant pigments, these ancient murals detail the position of the stars. Vega, Denebe and Altair- the three stars of the summer triangle, take a prominent position in the cave art. Seven tiny dots form the Seven Sister of The Pleiades. Above a curve figure seems to represent the extrordinary sight of the Northern Crown. Were the caves a quiet refuge in which our early brothers educated their kind with maps and stories of wonder? It would appear so. Dr. Rappenglueck, a German scientist, tells BBC News Online, "It is a map of the prehistoric cosmos. It was their sky, full of animals and spirit guides."


From tiny paint dots on a cave wall, to elaborate digital machines capable of projecting thousands of tiny starlike lights on domed screen, man is obsessed with capturing the wonders of nature with tools of his hands. So the next time you are sitting in the quiet, cool refuge of your local planetarium, close your eyes and imagine sitting in the quiet, cool refuge of a natural cave, listening to your elders relay the wisdom and wonder unique to our human minds. Tat Tvam Asi. We are One.

Creating Constellations

There is no rule in astronomy that's says you can't create your own constellations. Perseus, Pegasus, Cassiopia, long dead heros of another time. The big dipper is cool, I totally spot my curry ladle twisting round in the north. But the little dipper? Forget it, even I have never seen it clearly. I love spotting Orion in his manly stance, but Sagitarius the archer only looks like a little teapot. No, I much rather enjoy connecting-the-stars in more familiar shapes like the VW beetle, lollipops, and the "mind blowing star made of stars."
With this personal affinity for creating constellations you can imagine my grotesque excitement when I stumbled upon this t-shirt. While I wanted it more than anything, it simply was not meant for me. Instead I gifted it to my best astrogeek friend Maxwell. (Though I did wear it to bed one night, shhh don't tell him.) Afterall, if there was ever a star gaze to find "pterodactyl with machine gun" it would be Death Bear.

Clear Sky Adventures

Each night, as our Earth spins away from the Sun, our sky dims to dark allowing the tiny vibrancy of our intersteller comrades to shine through to wide eyed eager eyes. Generation after generation we are sharing this earthbound sky, sharing stories and knowledge binds us as a human race. And yet, despite this nightly show, most people do not look up but with a passing glance of admiration. As an astronomy teacher I always embrace the chance to talk to friends and probe their knowledge of the extraterrestrial realm. From hunting out favorite constellations to locating the eclliptic or discovering satellites, my fellow humanoids generally love having a knowledgable pal handy.

Often times people are intimated by the great size and span of the space beyond. I've heard friends say, "I love space, but there is so much to know, I'll never know what Im looking at." Well fear no more fellow star gazers! For those living in the Tampa Bay area, a new astronomy master has entered the teaching arena. Clear Sky Adventures offers a wealth of learning programs and outtings. Equipped with the best telescope gadgetry on the market, their experienced Science Guides will work to squeeze the vastness of space into easily understandable lessons for ages 3-93. Friendly, passionate and skilled in star gazing navigation an evening with these astrogeeks will not disappoint!

For booking information and details check out their new site: http://www.clearskyadventures.com/
*Tell them I sent you over and you will receive the friendliest service ever! :D

Happy Star Gazing!

Star Lab Day


Last Friday, on an evening with a brilliant yellow fingernailofGod Moon, I volunteered in my good friend's first grade class. That day was to be Star Lab Day and tension hung in the air like mountain fog. The students' constant obsession, the teachers' reluctant preparation, the giant plastic dome sprawling across the media center floor jiggling with blown air, fear and wonder colliding.


The day began routine enough for the students and their charming teacher, Mrs. B. Scrambled moments of homework return, morning greetings and the pledge of allegiance signaled the starting line of this first grade day. Yet today also delivered the wonderful questions of confusion marked by large attentive eyes commonly known as Star Lab mania. Standing firm in her position, like the Captain of a rowdy vessel, Mrs. B guided the sea of minds with masterly command and gentle care .Mother to 18 bouncing heads, her movements are quick but her tongue quicker. One tandrum quailed with soft understanding nods while an ambush to the side simmers in reflection of lost rewards. My role is simple in this erratic ballet, I float and I push the other dancers along.



The hour then peaks with midday in sky, while inside the darkness pulls in eager minds. Ahead of the gang with time to prepare, I crawl through the cold opening of plastic and air. Flashlights in hand, in slow pointed steps, I explore the small meadow under an electric night. Large points of light steal the gaze while fainter sisters wait patiently for the adjusting eye. By fours bodies enter, giggling and rushed, as my lightbeam directs them to crowded carpet spots. Squeals of delight mask fearful faces, questions and comments racing across the dome like invisible comets of hot air. It is hot and stuffy with 20+ bodies, the heat of the projector only absorbing the chill of the mighty blowers. Yet in the heat and darkness and noise, adventurous scenes captivate the gazers. Points of light once distinct now merge to form shapes of beauty and beasts alike. A dipper awakens into the Big Bear, the familar W of Casseopia outlines her eternal crown. Cygnus dives deep into the dark West while Orion stands tall,his bright nosed puppy in toe. Hands on the head in V-like form, for powerful horns, we spot Taurus the Bull dodging the two hunters in their rythmic chase. With arching observation we see the moon's path as the remaining zodiac animals parade through the night.

In the heat and the darkness and the noise, wonder strikes. Eyes to the heavens and minds in a blaze, each gazer promises tonight they will look up! Though only electric points of light on thin floating plastic, the radiance and glory of the beyond shine through. First grade or 34, each soul gains the lightness of experiencing the night. Once feared and avoided, now embraced and explored. This is the mission of the Star Lab. And today, this mission was mine.





Yaniel, Katie and I at a telescope event with an amazing Space Shuttle inflatable slide!! March 2010



Sol Luna Tierra II

 There is no greater inspiration than my earthbound view of the heavens. My art can say the rest...

Planetary Mandalas

http://www.ccrsdodona.org/m_dilemma/1990/sag/mandalas.html

Like Time, nothing remains still in space. Time and space are one. And as bodies drift along in timespace, an invisible trail marks their path. Like sparklers burning designs in thin air,
our sister worlds carve intricate doodlings in emptiness of space. Using special logarthims and specialized software some scientist artists are recreating these patterns of planetary movements. The images are striking. In a function of time and space the gentle glidings appear like dancers with long
ribbons of silk. At once elaborate and simplistic, these creations exude elegance, evidence of a great design. So named beause of their resemblence to the beautiful mandalas drawn by Hindu and Buddhist monks as a spiritual devotion to the Creator.

I love staring into a mandala. The puzzlelike angles drawing in the eye while the mind relaxs into a silent witness state lost in intricacy. Swaying with the curves I feel a tune vibrating from the bottomlessness. They never get old, they are never truely mastered. I post them on my walls, I doodle them on notebooks and in the sand, I trace them in the air with incense.

And to think, these artistic devotions, so earthly in origin, are but recreations of an ancient art forged in the heat of creation. Our constellations and amatuer attempts to calcuate motions are like childish scribbles in the gallery of mastered mandala movements. Where, oh wandering stars, will your doodlings lead you to night?

For the kid in you...

My boyfriend's eight year old son lives in Chile and has recently earned the honor of presenting a speech to classmates and city dignitaries. With the world's topics at his fingertips, the young scientist jumped out of the box, and off the Earth as it were, to discuss to his peers The Origin of the Universe. Sensing the ambition beyond this endeavor he decided to relax just a little and focus in specific on the creation of the Solar System.
Although the young mind does not need my assistance, he nevertheless asked politely for my advice on his research. I did not want to give him any aswers. The hardest, yet most important part of learning is finding the right questions to ask. I just hoped to aim his questions and curiousity in the right direction...
Compiling a short list of websites and animations, I helped steer his mighty quest with this letter, written in English and translated into Spanish by my language expert, Alejandro.


Janito,
I hear you earned a prestigious opportunity to show your classmates how smart you are! What an amazing adventure. And even more so because you choose one of the most difficult yet wondrous topics in the entire universe. Your speech will be 100% yours, but you know I love any opportunity to talk about the science of astronomy, and I hope I can help you in any way possible. There are great websites and videos available to you for research, and I have included a few to get you started. But maybe I can tell you a little story first...

Humans have always looked up with wonder at the sky above. Ancients believed the sun and moon to be gods, and that their movement through the stars influenced the growing of plants, the movement of the wind, even the lives of men. The stars were so important, professional astronomers watched the sky over hundreds of years, trying to unlock the secrets of the heavens.

Some of the things we have learned in the last in 7000 years...

The planets are not stars, they are more like us made of rock and gas. The word planet means "wandering star" because every night they move just a little across the "surface" of the sky.

The planets move in a line across the surface of the sky. It is like the equator but at a funny angle higher, or lower than the equator at different times of year.

The sun and moon also move along this line. Because of this, the line is called the Ecliptic because it is on this line that the sun and moon meet. This meeting is beautiful to watch from Earth, we call it the Eclipse. You can find this line if you look East and trace a line across the sky all the way to West.

For thousands of years humans thought that the sun, moon and planets are all moving around the earth because the earth is the center of the universe. This idea is called the Geocentric theory. If go out and look at the sky tonight, you can easily image why they thought this, it really does look like the sky is moving around us!

But, about 400 years ago, scientific observation showed us something new! A scientist named Copernicus noticed that the planets Mercury and Venus move very strange across our sky. Playing with the mathematics of their orbits, he imaged almost as a joke, "what if the sun was at the center of the solar system not the Earth?" He laughed, and so did many people, but the math was too good and some people stopped laughing and started looking up at the sky.

Galileo Galilei as one of the men who looked up. Using the spyglass that was used for war, he looked up to the sky to see what was out there. First he looked at the moon. He observed that the moon, like the earth, has big mountains and valleys. How did this happen? Then he looked at Jupiter, the biggest planet and saw that it had four orbiting stars of its own! The little moons were moving around Jupiter just like our Moon moves around Earth! "Hmm", he thought, "what if Copernicus is right and the sun is really at the center and all the planets, including Earth, move around it!?"

This was an amazing idea! Scientific observation was showing humans a very different world. A world tiny and distant from a giant, blazing hot sun. This idea became known as the Heliocentric model or... the Solar System.

And the rest of the story belongs to science. Many men and women have devoted their lives to understanding WHAT, HOW, WHEN, and WHY the solar system looks the way it does. Where did the sun come from? What are the stars made of? How do planets form? Why do some planets have moon and others do not? Are there more planets in universe? Is there maybe life on other planets?

Best of luck on your journey to explore the universe. The best way to talk to teach other people about something is to love whatever it is you are talking about. The stars are huge and the math that governs them is precise, but everyone can understand and love the sky if they stop, look, and think about what they see. And remember, we all look up at the same sky. Have fun!!