Morehead Planetarium and Science Center

By Amy Sayle

Does Orion look like this to you? You must be looking from a dark site, such as Ocracoke Island, NC. Or there is a massive power outage.

How dark is your sky? The constellations will tell you. The more stars you can see in a given constellation, such as Orion or Leo, the darker your sky.

By going outside at least one hour after sunset and making simple observations about the stars you can see, you can participate in a worldwide citizen-science project to map light pollution around the globe.

Everything you need to know can be found at the GLOBE at Night website. The site has activity packets designed for families and teachers.

This is how Orion looked tonight from outside Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill, NC, where many outdoor lights are unshielded, washing out the fainter stars—and failing to light the ground effectively and efficiently.

Through March 12, you can use Orion to collect your data. For later campaigns — March 31-April 9 and April 29-May 8 — use Leo instead. (If you stumbled across this blog from the southern hemisphere, you can use Crux, the Southern Cross.)

Submit your data online with GLOBE at Night’s web app. Your data helps create an interactive map of observations worldwide. Then you can compare your results with others’ reports.

Want to learn more about dark skies? Join us for “Our Vanishing Night” at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center on Saturday, March 9, 2013, from 3:30-4:15 p.m.

Orion has lost his belt and is unrecognizable. Perhaps you are in Manhattan. (Orion images from globeatnight.org)

You’ll learn how to identify the stars of Orion, Leo, and other constellations; hear a cultural star story or two; see a light shielding demo that will amaze you; and experience the planetarium sky at varying levels of light pollution, including a pristine dark sky lit only by thousands of stars and the Milky Way.

Amy Sayle was the 6,384th Citizen Scientist to submit data to GLOBE at Night.

By Amy Sayle

On June 5, 2012, witness the black silhouette of Venus slowly gliding in front of the Sun.

My all-time favorite case of “impossible astronomy” happens in the final scene of Dan Brown’s popular novel The Da Vinci Code.

First, Brown invents a new moon that rises soon after sunset. (New moons actually rise at sunrise.) Then, that new moon—which by definition wouldn’t be lit on the side facing Earth—somehow bathes a character in moonlight (“her face was beautiful in the moonlight”).

Brown also tampers rather dramatically with Venus, flinging the planet right out of its orbit! See if you can spot the scientific impossibility in this excerpt from his novel, in which the character Robert Langdon makes this observation:

The stars were just now appearing, but to the east, a single point of light glowed brighter than any other. Langdon smiled when he saw it. It was Venus.

Consider the time: Since “the stars were just now appearing,” it must be early evening. The Sun has recently set. And Langdon sees Venus in the east.

But if it’s shortly after sunset and Venus is in the sky, the planet has to be more or less in the west, the same direction where the Sun set.

That’s because Venus can only appear near the Sun in our sky. Venus orbits closer to the Sun than Earth does. So from our point of view, Venus appears to travel back and forth from one side of the Sun to the other, never straying too far from the part of the sky where we see the Sun.

Therefore, if you see Venus as an “evening star,” Venus must be in the west. If you see it as a “morning star,” it must be in the east.

For months, Venus has been shining brilliantly in the western evening sky, until recently, when it vanished into the solar glare. Later this month (June 2012), Venus will re-appear on the other side of the Sun, in the eastern morning twilight.

In the meantime, though, something unusual happens: On its way to becoming a “morning star” Venus will pass directly in front of—it will transit—the Sun on Tuesday, June 5, 2012. Over about six hours, the planet will look like a black dot gliding across the face of the Sun.

If Venus and Earth orbited the Sun in exactly the same plane, these transits would be common. But because the two planets’ orbits are inclined relative to one another, a transit of Venus is a rare event, one that occurs in 8-year pairs separated by more than a century. Since we just had one in 2004, this June 5^th is your last chance ever to see a Venus transit. That is, unless you’re planning on still being around for the next transit on December 10, 2117, or perhaps moving to somewhere else in the solar system.

Morehead Planetarium and Science Center will host a viewing of this rare, historic event. (Important note: To view the transit of Venus directly, you MUST protect your eyes at all times with proper solar filters, properly used.)

Our special family science event for the Transit of Venus happens at our building, 250 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill. On Tuesday, June 5, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., you can:

• Safely view the transit with solar telescopes and “eclipse glasses” (weather permitting, else we’ll watch via the internet).
• See a live planetarium show in our fulldome theater. Learn how Venus transits helped us measure the size of the solar system and how astronomers use the transit method to find exoplanets.
• Tour the Morehead Observatory.
• Learn about the Sun and Venus from NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassadors.
• Participate in family-friendly hands-on activities: make a sundial, experiment with “sun beads,” design a sun mask, make a planet, hunt for exoplanets, and more.

Most activities are not weather dependent, so this event (which is FREE, by the way) happens rain or shine. Please join us!

Don't miss this! Your next chance to view a transit of Venus from North Carolina won’t be until 2125.

By admin

By Stephanie Baber

It’s that time of year again — time to choose summer camp experiences for your children. And if you work in the Research Triangle Park, you have a new summer camp option for your children of RTP workers.

Morehead Planetarium and Science Center is expanding its popular science camps to a new RTP site at Kestrel Heights Charter School. Morehead Summer Science Camps provide a fun and educational way for children to spend their summer, with hands-on learning activities, science-themed crafts and outdoor recreation.

The new RTP site is conveniently located near the intersection of N.C. 54 and N.C. 55, perfect for busy parents who work in Research Triangle Park. Morehead offers one-week, full-day sessions from July 9 through Aug. 3, with drop-off beginning as early as 7:45 a.m. and pick-up continuing through 5:30 p.m.

Each camp session pairs a morning theme with a afternoon theme:

• Grades K-1
  
  “Dinosaur Detectives” and “Magic Tree House Explorers”
  
  “Aquatic Addresses” and “Bodies in Motion”
• 
Grades 2-3
  
  “Cricket Coding” and “Me and My Shadow”
  
  “Secret Formulas” and “Magic Tree House Researchers”
• Grades 4-5
  
  “Fizz! Bang! Boom!” and “Test Pilots”
  
  “LEGO Lab” and “Sky Searchers”
• 
Grades 6-8
  
  “Rocket Science” and “Moon, Mars and Beyond”
  
  “Astronomical Wonders” and “LEGO” Lab Challenge”

Morehead Summer Science Camps present science to kids in new and exciting ways. Camp curricula are developed by science educators at Morehead and presented by camp counselors who are science and education majors at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Registration for these camps is open now through Morehead’s website. And if you’re a Morehead member, you’re eligible for a $30 discount on each camp session.

And if you don’t work in RTP? Morehead still offers a full summer of its “kid-tested, parent-approved” one-week, half-day camps at its original site on the UNC campus.

Stephanie Baber is a junior in UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communications and a public relations intern with Morehead's marketing department.

By Karen Kornegay

Come explore human health and wellness at Morehead’s Family Science Day program this Saturday (April 2, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.).

How do the foods you eat affect your health? Family Science Day shares some ideas.

You can taste test healthy snacks. Take a mini-class in yoga or tai chi with your kids. Test your heart rate before and after competing in a mini-Olympics event. Learn how thoughts can affect health.

There’ll be guest speakers, exhibits, hands-on activities, story time and even a Science LIVE! Human Body Test. You can meet and talk with scientists who are researching ways to keep us all healthy through every stage of life.

All of the Family Science Day activities are free, and everything is planned so that there’s something for almost every age level — even yours! See you Saturday.

My officemate is eating an apple right now.