The Planetarium Working Group is dedicated to gathering, sharing and creating activities in planetariums. The project Planetarians Without Borders, launched during Global Astronomy Month, April 2011, and focuses on bringing together planetarium professionals around the globe in ongoing programs and events meant to be sustainable even beyond GAM.
Suggested Events for Your Planetarium
- Astropoetry Sessions: Transform your planetarium, freely combining images, video, stars, and music—while reading poetry under a starry dome.
- Dark Skies Awareness: How is your sky? An event comparing the sky inside the planetarium with the real sky, creating awareness of the need to preserve night skies—especially in big cities—as the public goes to the planetarium and looks at the “perfect sky,” then goes outside and looks at the “real sky.” Ask your audience: “How do you perceive your sky now, after seeing the potential and the beauty it could really have?
- SunDay: Promote, during Sun Day, a planetarium show dedicated to the Sun. Get to “Know your Star”.
- Together with Astronomers Without Borders, the Astronomical Observatory at University of Valencia will offer a planetarium show titled “El Cielo en Tus Manos,” (The Sky in Your Hands) based on a project developed during IYA in Spain. For more information on how you can adopt the program, please go the "The Sky in Your Hands" webpage. For further information on the programs and resources please contact: Amelia Ortiz-Gil
- OPTICKS in the Dome: For Global Astronomy Month 2012 we will launch an Art/Science adaptation for planetariums of the project OPTICKS, a project by Daniela de Paulis (IT/NL), in collaboration with CAMRAS radio amateurs association based at Dwingeloo radio telescope (NL). OPTICKS is a live performance during which digital images are sent to the Moon in form of radio signals from a dish situated in Brazil, the UK or Switzerland and received back by Dwingeloo radio telescope in The Netherlands. The 'moonbounced' images are projected in real time during the performance.
For GAM2012 the challenge set to all planetariums is to add to the original project the projection of a fulldome video clip, composed of moonbounced images that will be accessible by download trough the AWB website and that will add to OPTICKS an immersive experience of moonbounced visuals. The full dome projection of the video will be accompanied by the Moonbell, a sonified rendering of the Moon’s surface by JAXA.
These are only a few of the ways you and your planetarium can celebrate Global Astronomy Month - we’d like to hear more. Planetarians around the world are already doing so many creative initiatives and doing them so well. Share with us your GAM. This is a chance to see your ideas implemented around the world. You can become an inspiration to the community.
