2025-03-28 Chat

The Sun's Fury: Celebrating Solar Maximum at The Lawrence Planetarium. The Lawrence's newest live & interactive planetarium program is an adventure through solar cycles, the electromagnetic spectrum, and space weather. Planetarium Specialist Ellen Torres Thompson gives a summary of "The Sun's Fury," as well as share their experiences developing and presenting this daily public program.  Ellen Torres Thompson (she/they) is the Planetarium Specialist at the Lawrence Hall of Science. She develops planetarium programs mainly using OpenSpace in conjunction with the media composer WorldViewer. In addition to her software programming work, Ellen contributes to show scriptwriting, in-show-activity development, student presenter training, and daily show presenting. Watch the video.

Below you can find the list of attendees, a copy of the chat, and a slightly edited version of an AI Summary for the Ellen's talk. 

Ellen has also shared her slides here.

To see a description and schedule of upcoming Planetarians' Zoom Seminars, visit https://www.ppadomes.org/events/online-seminars/pzs-schedule

Below:

• Attendees

• Chat

• AI Summary

Attendees

1. Rosemary Walling, Marie Drake Planetarium, Juneau, AK

2. Alan Gould, Berkeley CA USA

3. Amie Gallagher, Raritan Valley Community College, Branchburg, NJ

4. Mary Holt, The Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley, CA

5. Cal Powell, Alexandria, VA

6. Andy Flynt, Spartanburg, SC

7. Todd Ullery, New Freedom, PA

8. Liam Forbes, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks AK

9. Bryan Mendez, Berkeley, CA

10. Karl von Ahnen - Santa Cruz Mountains, Ca

11. Jeremy Amarant Palmdale School District, SAGE Planetarium, Palmdale, CA

12. John Erickson, Richmond, CA

13. Ryan Moore, Los Angeles CA

Chat

00:20:36 Mary Holt: Wow, we're lying to folks 😂

00:33:42 Ryan Moore: Really awesome job Ellen!!! <3

00:34:20 Amie Gallagher: How do you explain to people that the Sun being white is different from a white star on the HR diagram being much hotter?

00:35:23 Mary Holt: Also hopefully mid-day people aren't looking at the Sun! Always a good reminder haha

00:35:34 Andy Flynt - SCPL: Reacted to "Also hopefully mid-d..." with 👍

00:38:03 Mary Holt: You mean The Little Star that Could lied to me??? lol

• Amie Gallagher: Reacted to "You mean The Little ..." with 😂

00:40:49 Mary Holt: I never took a biology class, so I don't know how that all works lolol

00:41:13 Amie Gallagher: Thank you for the color discussion!

00:44:00 Jeremy Amarant: Yellow is the opposite of blue. The blue sky might be why so many people think of the sun as yellow.

• Ellen Torres Thompson: Reacted to "Yellow is the opposi..." with 🫨

00:45:00 Mary Holt: And OpenSpace has been doing a lot of work lately on making your own buttons much more easily!

• Ellen Torres Thompson: Reacted to "And OpenSpace has be..." with 💯

• Ellen Torres Thompson: Reacted to "Omg we need to find ..." with ❤️

00:48:25 PPA (Rosemary Walling): https://www.openspaceproject.com/

00:50:35 Mary Holt: That makes sense, Uniview has that too and also calls it a bundle

00:52:13 Mary Holt: Omg we need to find a reason to put Paco up on the dome, our chinchilla hehe

01:00:13 Mary Holt: I was struggling to pay for some food at a food truck and they were like, you need to take off your sunglasses, because my sunglasses were polarized lol

01:00:20 Mary Holt: With a tablet payment thing

01:04:41 PPA (Rosemary Walling): Next month's Seminar: 2025 Apr 25 at 11am PDT (2pm EDT, 18:00 UT). Caves in Domes … and Other Geoscience in Digital Planetariums. Ka Chun Yu relates the shared history of space and Earth science visualizations, what geoscience education actually entails, and why fulldome theaters are especially suited to take audiences on tours of their home planet.

01:04:41 Mary Holt: Karl, Ellen did want to spray our guests with water during an SOS program, so, it's not that far off 😂

01:09:38 Amie Gallagher: Thanks Ellen!

AI-Generated Summary

This is an AI-generated summary with only minor edits.

Quick recap

Ellen presented an overview of a new planetarium show, "The Sun's Fury," which explores the sun from a cultural astronomy perspective, teaches the Electromagnetic spectrum and Solar Cycle, and includes interactive activities. The Lawrence Planetarium team also discussed the development of the show’s music playlist and the WorldViewer and OpenSpace back end. Additionally, they explored the possibility of various activities and demonstrations related to polarized light and other physics concepts for educational purposes. The team discussed the possibility of sharing the Sun’s Fury and Science On a Sphere shows with other institutions.

Summaries

The Sun's Fury Presentation

In the meeting, PPA discussed the upcoming presentation Ka Chun Yu from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Caves in Domes … and Other Geoscience in Digital Planetariums. Alan introduced Ellen, who is working at the Lawrence Hall of Science and co-developed a new show. Ellen presented an overview of the new show, "The Sun's Fury," which debuted during the winter solstice. The show opens with exploring the sun from a cultural astronomy perspective and discussing its cycles of sunrise and sunset. The audience is asked to guess the color of the sun, then they engage in an interactive activity of studying an Earth object (a polar bear). to understand the color of the sun. Using the cove lights, to show the bear illuminated in yellow, orange, and red light, the audience arrives at the answer that the sun is white on their own. 

Sun and Space Weather Overview

Next, the audience is blasted off to outer space to see a visual representation of the Sun's size compared to Earth and Jupiter. This is followed by an interactive activity using diffraction gratings to explore the electromagnetic spectrum. The presentation then covers various types of light emitted by the Sun, highlighting connections to Lawrence exhibits and local Berkeley scientific research. The show includes a segment on sunspots and the solar cycle, featuring an audience participation activity to count sunspots across 11 years of solar images. It concludes with explanations of solar storms, their effects on Earth and space technology, and the phenomenon of auroras, emphasizing the current solar maximum period and its potential impacts.

Making The Show

Ellen started to discuss the making of the show,  focusing on the activity development. She addressed a comment about the sunset's inaccuracy and suggested a possible solution: validate the audience's perspectives of the sun being yellow/orange/red, because that is how it looks sometimes, while explaining that’s just not what you would see from outer space. Mary and Bryan provided insights on the sun's color, with Bryan explaining that the sun appears white to humans due to its spectrum and the way human eyes perceive it. The discussion also touched on the sun's peak in the electromagnetic spectrum and its relation to plant biology.

Open Space Development and Customizations

Ellen discussed the development of a music playlist and the WorldViewer and OpenSpace back end. She mentioned the media composer through which the OpenSpacevisualizations and other images are inputted. Ellen also talked about the user controls and the script notes for presenters. She showed the code for the solar storm button and how it gets the program ready to show the big rainbow solar storm. Ellen also mentioned the custom profile for OpenSpace and the customizations she made to existing open space data sets. Mary asked if it's possible to fully give the entire show to someone who uses WorldViewer to which Ellen confirmed it's possible through a bundle.

Visitor Comment Card and Sharing The Show

Ellen highlighted the show’s engaging and educational aspects. She mentioned the show's interactive features and how it encourages visitors to explore other areas of the museum. An LHS visitor comment card noted the show's ability to engage children, which Ellen appreciated. Bryan mentioned that the show was funded by the NASA COFFIES project and encouraged other planetariums to use and distribute the show's assets. Alan suggested that the presenter's enthusiasm can positively impact the audience's experience.

Polarized Light Demonstrations for Education

The group discusses various activities and demonstrations related to polarized light and other physics concepts for educational purposes. They explore ideas such as using polarizing filters with light sources, creating 3D images, and demonstrating polarization effects with glasses and handheld filters. The conversation also touches on potential challenges with dome surfaces and preserving polarization. Additionally, they mention other hands-on activities involving UV light, magnetism, and convection, as well as the possibility of sharing Science On a Sphere shows with other institutions. The discussion concludes with a brief mention of using sphere datasets in planetariums.

Sharing Files and Seminar Description

In the meeting, Ellen discussed her experience with the NOAA database and the possibility of sharing her work with others. Bryan suggested two ways to share files, either by getting them onto the NOAA database or by directly sending them. Ellen also mentioned her lost slides from a previous presentation. The conversation ended with the assurance that the recording would be available on the PPA website and YouTube.