2020 Archive

• • 2020 Dec 18 2020. A visit to Alaska's first planetarium.  Hosts: Rosemary Walling (Board member), Stephen Kocsis (Board secretary), Christina Della Rosa (Board president), and David Hanson  (Board member). PPA president Karl von Ahnen introduces boardmembers Rosemary, Stephen, and Christina of the Marie Drake planetarium in Juneau Alaska. This is an all-volunteer/free-to-everyone planetarium, which recently completed a very successful fundraising campaign. Presentation + Q&A  (1 hr 18 min). Chat.

  • 30 Oct 2020.  Use Images and Videos in Your Planetarium...Legally.   Chris Reed. Can you take an image from NASA's website and use it in a production without permission? A video clip from YouTube? Is it fair use if I only use it for less than 30 seconds? What about the educational use exception (does that even exist)? Learn more about copyright issues with using images and video clips in your productions -- and how to avoid them. Chris Reed previously presented the 28 June 2019 Planetarians' Webinar on "Use Music in Your Planetarium...Legally" (below). Chris is a Los Angeles-based lawyer specializing in intellectual property, First Amendment, antitrust, and commercial litigation in the media and entertainment industry.  Presentation + Q&A (1 hr 29 min). Chat.

  • 26 June  2020. VJ-ing with NestDrop in the Dome, Jason Fletcher, Associate Producer and 3D animator at the Charles Hayden Planetarium, Museum of Science, Boston. Take your evening music shows to the next level with dome visuals which react to the music. Learn how to get NestDrop visuals running on your dome system. Gain access to our custom VJ software and library of 9,800 of curated presets. Learn about the Spout realtime video sharing framework. Experiment with VJ-ing in the dome. Presentation + Q&A (1 hr 4 min). [See better resolution diagrams that Jason showed: CaptureServer, DigistarOption1, DigistarOption2, NestMap, Recording4k.]

  • 29 May 2020. NASA Working For You: the Museum Alliance, Jeffrey Nee, Informal Education Specialist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Have your own dedicated help line for all things NASA, space exploration, and STEAM education. The NASA Museum Alliance supports museums and planetariums around the world with professional development, custom resources, and personalized assistance with planetarium shows as well as interactive dome curriculum. Connection to this recording is through NASA. You must be a member of the NASA Museum Alliance (free) to sign in and access the recording. You can sign up for an account here: https://informal.jpl.nasa.gov/museum/About

• • 24 April 2020 Planetarians' Webinar was a workshop:

    • What makes a successful live interactive planetarium program? led by Karrie Berglund. 3 videos: Intro (5:49) https://youtu.be/wyiNmSV4YHo;

    • Discussion 1 (16:30) https://youtu.be/pDt6kUtH-pM; 

    • Discussion 2 (32:18) https://youtu.be/vRDA0Oe15VU 

We've all attended live interactive planetarium presentations that were so enjoyable we wish they would never end. On the flip side are those programs that seem to drag on and on and on. In this LIPS-style workshop, we worked in small and large groups to identify qualities of successful and unsuccessful interactive planetarium programs. Karrie Berglund is Chief LIPS (Live Interactive Planetarium Symposium) Instigator and Director of Education for Digitalis. See Karrie's notes from the Discussion Groups.

• • 27 March 2020. Big Astronomy: (Nearly) Free Show and Great Resources. Renae Kerrigan (Planetarium Director at Peoria Riverfront Museum),  Shannon Schmoll (Planetarium Director at Abrams Planetarium),  Tiffany Wolbrecht (Planetarium Lecturer at Ward Beecher Planetarium). Big Astronomy is a NSF funded project to explore the Dome+ model – a planetarium show distributed for a minimal fee in both English and Spanish along with a website that hosts resources and live programs to extend learning beyond the dome. Research on the effectiveness of this method will be carried out by Michigan State University. Learn more about the project and the resources that will be available to your planetarium in this presentation. Presentation ((37:23) - | - Q&A (26:36)

  • 28 February 2020. NITARP: Astronomy Research Experience for Astronomy Educators. Dr. Luisa Rebull (NITARP Director, Caltech, Pasadena, California) and Geoff Holt (Planetarium Director, Madison Metropolitan School District Planetarium, Madison, Wisconsin. NITARP (NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program) gives educators first-hand experience doing authentic astronomy research. Planetarians who have participated described it as an amazing professional development experience that has had major impacts on their teaching. Luisa Rebull gave an overview of the program with details on when and how to apply; and Geoff Holt shares his experience participating on a NITARP research team in 2019. Presentation (30:11) - | - Q&A (28:29).

  • 31 January2020. Perceived Education and Entertainment Value in Live and Pre-recorded Planetarium Programs. Emily Peavy, Planetarium Technician and Support Facilitator, Imiloa Astronomy Center, Hilo Hawai`i. It is an age-old (albeit confounding) debate about the relative merits of live and pre-recorded programs. Throw in contrasting views about education versus entertainment goals under the dome and you may have thoroughly confounded the discussion. In this seminar, Emily Peavy casts some light and clarity on the issues in telling about a research project that she described in the latest issue of the Planetarian.  Presentation (37:58) -|- Q&A (25:13).