Christmas Planetarium Shows

School is back in session, and the Museum's holiday hours and educational programming are all wrapped up.  It was a successful holiday season this year. The weather was cooperative, and we had great attendance.  I like the holidays, because it means I get to do some extra programming with the visitors.  Normally, I work with schools or other places who have hired me for some special program, but it has been a few years since I've worked regularly with the general public.  It is important to work with students, but part of our mission at the Museum is to reach the whole community.  The opportunity to reach out to the parents, grandparents, and other visitors is a chance to get them "turned on" to science!

During this year's holiday season I worked on three educational projects.  Two were planetarium shows and one was a comical science skit about dinosaurs.  In this post I will write about the planetarium shows, and discuss the skit in a later post.

"Santa's Sky" planetarium title slide

Santa's Sky Planetarium Show:  This is a children's planetarium show that lasts for approximately 20 minutes.  The idea is to use the planetarium's star projector to show the night sky from both Syracuse, NY and the North Pole.  I teach people how to find a few of the major constellations in Syracuse, and then we use the planetarium's latitude feature, to follow the north star until it stops directly above our heads at 90 degrees.

So what is different between viewing the stars at the North Pole and Syracuse?  Well for one thing, the sun doesn't rise for half the year.  This means you can watch the stars day and night for several months at a time.  I mentioned that the north star, Polaris, is right above your head.  Since this is just about the center point above the North Pole, and the Earth is constantly rotating, it appears that Polaris stays right above your head while all the other stars parade in a circle around the sky.  It reminds me of a carousel.  Sure, the north star appears to stay in one spot when viewed from Syracuse, but because it looks lower in the sky from Syracuse many of the other constellations rise and set with the seasons.  Pretty cool huh?  I like to mention to the families at the show that if you learn the constellations you can use them to navigate.  And if a certain someone needed to make his way around the world, he could do it at night by following the stars.  Before I bring the lights back up and send everyone on their way, I play some relaxing music on my Native American style flute while they watch the carousel of stars above their heads.

St. Matthew from the Ebbo Gospels

The Christmas Star - This is one of the planetarium shows I'm most proud of, and most cautious about.  It is a 40 minute show, which is mostly a slide show lecture on different theories about what the Star of Bethlehem might have been.  Was it a comet, a planetary conjunction, or a supernova?  During the show I take a look through the Gospel of Matthew to review the story about the "star" and find clues about when it occurred and what it may have been.  This is my third year performing this show.  When I first researched it, I read through sources on the internet, traveled out of state to see a lecture on the topic, and read a great book that became my best source.  The book is Michael Molnar's "The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi."  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.  What makes the book so great is that Mr. Molnar did a lot of work searching through ancient sources in an attempt to understand the astrology practiced by the "wise men."  The rules to ancient astrology are more complicated than you might expect, but he is able to find a day in 6 BC when the stars align in a way that may have signaled a birth of the King of the Jews.  Before next year's shows come around again, I plan to read Courtney Robert's "The Star of the Magi: The Mystery that Heralded the Coming of Christ."  She doesn't offer an exact date like Molnar does, but apparently she makes a good case that he and other's need to be looking to ancient Zoroastrian astrology instead of Greco-Roman astrology.

Possible date of Jesus' birthday. 
I made this image using Stellarium and Photoshop.

All the research I've done has been interesting to me personally, but what I like most about the planetarium show is that it reaches out to a community that sometimes has a complicated relationship with science.  Many Christians feel threatened by science.  Some worry that science leads to a world view that doesn't include God.  Another problem is that scientific discoveries and theories disagree with a literal interpretation of parts of the Bible (Creation in 6 days, Adam & Eve, Noah's Flood).  Some people will never find a way to reconcile their beliefs with science, but I think a lot of this bad blood is unnecessary, and may come from a poor understanding of what science really is.  In performing this show, my intention is to show respect for the Bible and the story of Jesus' birth while also introducing a historical and scientifically minded approach when interpreting it.  I hope this approach makes sense to the audience, and helps them to feel a little more comfortable with science.

Michael Molnar's
"The Star of Bethlehem"

Overall this has been a very positive experience.  If you work at a planetarium, you might be considering writing this type of show for yourself.  Maybe you are wondering about the appropriateness of the topic in a science museum?  Maybe you aren't sure what the response will be.  My opinion is that as free-choice science educators it is up to us to reach into the cultures of the communities in our area and find ways to connect.  Be very clear and upfront about your intentions with your audience.  Let them know what your goal for the show is and how you intend to accomplish it.  Don't discuss your personal belief or disbelief during the show.  Let the audience make their own conclusions about the content.

If you have done any research into the Star of Bethlehem or the Magi, I would love to read about it.  Or if you've given or attended similar presentations, I would be most appreciative to hear about your experience.  You can leave your thoughts with the blog's comment option.