(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello and welcome to "Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

You may wanna take a look at the skies during March and April.

There's a lot going on up there.

And one of the best places to see what is going on up there is Bowling Green State University's planetarium.

Joining us on "The Journal" today to talk about the opportunities that are available to do that is Director Kate Dellenbusch, and Kate, thank you so much for being on.

As I mentioned, it seems like March, April, there's just a lot going on up above us in the sky, and you guys of course, we're gonna talk about all the different opportunities people are gonna have over the next few weeks to use the planetarium, do some stargazing, moongazing, all the special shows.

But talk a little about too, the partnerships you have, because obviously the television station works with you guys with the educational outreach to try and bring more students in, more people in to be aware of what you do and what we do.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having me on again.

Yeah, we've been working with WBGU-PBS education specialists for the last year and a half or so, really since the solar eclipse and actually a little bit before that, getting ready for the eclipse.

And so that was great to film a little bit of information about eclipses leading up to that with them with you guys.

And also since then, we've been having a WGBU PBS kind of kids activity session in the planetarium each semester the last year and a half.

So that's been fantastic.

- [Steve] Yeah, and obviously too, a lot of people may not be aware, we talked about this when you were on before that some people probably still aren't aware that Bowling Green does have a planetarium and these these kind of activities.

So talk a little about what the planetarium is and the observatory because I think sometimes people may see it and not say, "Oh, well what is that?'

Or they don't know that it's available to them in the various ways we're gonna talk about.

- Yeah, Bowling Green State University has had a planetarium and an observatory since 1984.

So it's been around for a while, and is a great community resource for everyone in the area.

A planetarium is really kind of a space or a sky theater where we can show essentially movies up on the dome instead of a screen in front of you.

And in addition to those kind of pre-made shows, we also show the sky.

So before each program, we typically show what's up in the sky that night if it happened to be clear so people can get ready if they wanna go outside and check things out.

- Yeah, because I think probably some people think we talk about the planetarium and the observatory, we're talking about the same place, the same basically area, but they are two different things.

And you can basically put up a sky in the planetarium and pick a date, a time, or whatever, and show what the sky was like a hundred years ago on this state, or if something special had taken place, an eclipse, a solar eclipse, lunar eclipse, those kind of things, you can sort of recreate those inside the planetarium.

- [Kate] Yeah, I like to think of the planetarium as a space and time machine.

We can go and look at the sky from different places on earth and even maybe a little bit outside the earth as well as different times so we can dial up when we wanna see the sky.

- [Steve] Now you talked a little about the large solar eclipse that was last year, some of the events around that because obviously that was a big deal.

There was a lot of concern there was going to be such an onrush of people that it would create a lot of issues, but it appears that a lot of people were able to come here, enjoy it.

You guys were able to do a lot of neat things at the planetarium and kind of get involved in that and just make it a nice overall event for people to A, see the eclipse, and also then learn about what eclipses are and aren't and what they mean and don't mean.

So when we look at what's coming up, I know that a few days ago, someone talked about a lunar eclipse coming, that kind of thing.

So kind of explain again for people the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse, partial, full, all those sort of things.

- Yeah, so eclipses are all about shadow, so we need to think about what's casting a shadow on what.

And for a solar eclipse like we had, the moon is casting its shadow onto the earth.

And so if we are in the shadow, we get to see the eclipse.

For a lunar eclipse, it's the earth that's casting the shadow.

And so there, the moon is passing through the earth's shadow and so the moon will look darker during that time.

- Yeah, because I know we've, and it seems to me, and it maybe is just anecdotal sort of feels like that, but are people more interested now in what is going on with the stars and the moon?

I mean, seems a lot more interest in astronomy and these kind of things than maybe there was 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

- Yeah, I don't know, I mean I think it goes up and down maybe with what people are hearing in the news, if there's a cool space mission or something going on or something like the eclipse that it comes to people's mind more.

But yeah, I think over time, people have long been interested in the sky and I think that's one of the amazing things about astronomy and looking at the sky is it kind of speaks to us from an earlier time, right, that's sort of part of our DNA when humans looked up at the sky and sense of awe and wonder and wondering what they were seeing up there.

- [Steve] And used it to basically live their lifestyle depending on the phase of the moon, the sun, how much light there was, not light, that sort of thing, and actually develop cultures.

We talked about that the last time, how culturally driven a lot of this has been and still is in many places around the world.

You talk about harvest moons and blue, the different things that happen, the orange moons, that kind of thing.

When we look at the fact too, and the technology obviously has become more accessible, you're able to reach out to people a lot more than maybe people were able to because of things now with the ability to use streaming and the web and all those kind of things.

It didn't exist in the '90s before that where people almost had to come to the planetarium to even know you were there to see anything.

Now you can reach out in any number of ways to do that.

- [Kate] Yeah, that's certainly true that people can access similar information from their pocket with a phone these days.

And so yeah, that's a challenge I think a little bit for planetarium these days to stay relevant in that environment.

But I think there's still nothing like the experience of sitting under the dome and seeing a video or the sky.

- [Steve] I was just gonna say that you can look at it on your little screen, but the reality is when you're sitting in the planetarium and basically you're immersed and it's surrounding you, it's the difference between watching a movie on your phone and going to a theater.

It's really accessible on your phone, but it's still nothing like being inside that whole thing as it takes place.

When people come to the planetarium, and I know you hold a lot of public events, we're gonna talk about a lot of them that are upcoming, what are some of the questions that people ask?

Is there anything that ever surprises you about what they ask about either the skies or the planetarium or what all of this means?

- Yeah, I mean I think it's always great to get questions, even just in general, right?

People are curious about things, and so if they don't know about even why there are phase of the moon or something like that, it's great to be able to share that with them and just see that excitement with adults as well as kids.

I just had a group of third graders in the planetarium and they were asking all kinds of questions.

So it's great to see.

- Yeah, well, and then the nice thing about that too is reaching them, especially at an early age, gets them interested in not just astronomy, but science in general, the mathematics of all of that, because it all is interlinked and is a great learning thing.

Well, when we come back, we can talk about a lot of the things you have upcoming, and then talk about what's downstream beyond the next couple of months for the planet because you always have things that you're working on next year, next fall, so on and so on.

So we come back, we'll talk about what's gonna happen in the next couple of months at the planetarium.

Back in just a moment with Kate Dellenbusch from the planetarium at Bowling Green State University.

You're with us on "The Journal."

Our guest is Kate Dellenbusch, the Planetarium and Stargaze Director at Bowling Green State University.

And Kate, we talked a little about things that have gone on in the past and how you're involved in the community, but now as we get into March, and it's already started, some of it started in February, but a lot of it's really kicking off in March, a lot of activities between now and into April.

So kind of take us through what's going to happen, what's already taken place a little bit in the partnership there and then also too what people look forward to and take advantage of and participate in at the planetarium at the university.

- Yeah, we have regular public shows on Thursdays at 6:30 PM and on Sundays at 4:30 PM and 7:30 PM, with the 4:30 shows being more geared towards the younger audience.

But anybody's welcome of course.

And so those are open to the public, they're free, we welcome donations, but that's entirely up to visitors, what they feel like they can or want to contribute to keeping us going.

And then we also have, coming up, a speaker series.

So we've been doing that for the last couple of semesters now, and it's an interdisciplinary speaker series.

So we've got a bunch of great talks from faculty from around the BGSU campus from music and art and history as well as astronomy and really all making connections to the moon to tie into the lunar eclipse that's happening this month.

- Yeah, and it points out too, as we were talking a moment ago, the fact that this isn't just about astronomy.

This is a sort of thing that reaches into all different parts of our life, our lifestyles, our cultures, everything, so music's involved and other things that we deal with that are part of our lives like this.

So I know that when we look at some of the titles of someone, we can kind of go through these and you can kind of fill in as much detail as you're comfortable with.

I know you're talking about, we have a feature called "Max Goes to the Moon," one of the events.

And that first one is kind of interesting because it's a dog that's going to the moon.

Not literally, but at least.

So talk a little about what that one's like and kinda what the idea is behind that.

- [Kate] Yeah, so that's a new show that just premiered for at least the BGSU premiere.

And it's a show based on a children's book about a dog who goes to the moon.

So since it's been a long time since humans have been back to the moon, a dog gets excited to see the moon up in the sky and kind of initiates the new lunar program for people and becomes the first dog on the moon.

And so it's a fun, fun show.

It's a little bit of, it has an introduction from some active astronauts as well.

- [Kate] And, yeah, it's just a fun show about going to the moon and kind of some things entailed with that.

- [Steve] And another way to talk about all of those things that go on in a way that is not just pure academic.

It's very entertaining and at the same time, very informative.

One of the things I was looking at too and I was talking about, there's one of these that came up and I'm gonna lose my place now, but it talked about the impact of things that hit the moon, how many things that we've landed there, other things that didn't, I thought was kind of interesting too, because we look at the moon, okay, it's up there.

It's got all these craters and things, but we don't think about what happens when we land things there, things hit it that are other astronomical features, that kind of thing.

So that's kind of an interesting one as well.

- Yeah, that program will be given by Dr. Andrew McNeil, a new faculty member in astronomy in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at BGSU.

And so he's gonna talk about, he studies asteroids, and so he's, in this program, gonna talk a little bit about impact.

So things that have hit the moon and what effect that has on the moon.

- Yeah, because basically if you look at the moon, obviously if you're someone who studies it to any great detail, you can see all of those things, all those impact craters that are on there.

And those just didn't appear by accident.

Well they were sort of by accident maybe in a way.

But the reality is something hit the moon to create all of those and we just sort of take them for granted that, oh, it doesn't really mean a whole lot, but the reality is it does.

That's what's flying around up there.

And then every once in a while we hear about, oh, there's an asteroid that in 2035 may pass within [Steve] X thousands or whatever number of miles of the earth.

And so we start to wonder, "Well gee, if they can hit the moon, what about earth?"

- [Kate] There certainly have been impacts on the earth in the past.

We get worried about that happening if it's too big of one hitting the earth again and affecting humans and our civilization.

And so by looking at the moon, we can see the history of impacts in this part of the solar system since the moon doesn't have the same geologic processes that erase the craters more quickly on the surface of the earth.

- [Kate] So we see billions of years worth of impacts on the moon.

- [Steve] And I think the other thing about that too is it's told in a way too that people can kind of relate to in a way that maybe that would not just be pure straight textbook for the pure physics and astronomy person pursuing a degree in there.

There's also, obviously when we, and obviously I've talked about this one, there's space aliens, - [Steve] there's some presentations on that because obviously there's been a huge amount of talk of what used to be called UFOs.

Now they call them something else.

But that will be interesting too for people to talk about that.

So what's that going to be about?

- [Kate] Yeah, so another program we have coming up is called "Space Aliens: Looking for Life in the Universe."

And it's kind of the debate about whether there could be intelligent life in the universe and thinking about that question.

- [Steve] Oh yeah, yeah, because I think as we know, there's a lot of discussion right now about revealing what the government knows about UFOs from the past, UFOs that are up there now supposedly, that kind of thing.

So that'll be kind of interesting too that we look at that as well because for a lot of people obviously too, we've seen a lot of science fiction, we've read a lot of books, we've watched a lot of movies, and we have a perspective of what we believe it is based on a lot of cultural things.

But the reality is there's a lot more to it than that.

We've talked about too, how this affects people culture.

I know that one of the other ones here is called "Tales of Maya Skies," which again gets into how people thousands and thousands of years ago viewed the moon and what it did and what it meant and the sun and that sort of thing.

So talk a little about that as well.

- [Kate] Yeah, that one is running through March, and yeah, it's about kind of how the Maya understood the sky and things that were important to them and their ability to kind of keep track of a calendar, a really good calendar and things like equinoxes that were important, as you say, culturally, in terms of maybe when to harvest or plant, but also just in from a religious and a cultural sense as well.

- A spiritual point of view, sure, sure.

We come back, there's a few more of these we can touch on, then we can talk about what's downstream, what's in the future.

Because as I said earlier, you always have a lot of things in the pipeline, always trying to stay ahead of what's going on and then stay topical to what people are interested in as well.

So we'll talk about that too.

Back in just a moment with Kate Dellenbusch, the Planetarium and Stargaze Director at Bowling Green State University, back in just a moment.

Thanks for staying with us here on "The Journal."

Our guest is Kate Dellenbusch, and we're talking about the sky above us and what's going around us and things like that, and the BGSU Planetarium Observatory, which are helping us kind of learn in an entertaining way to kind of keep up with what's going on and kind of understand what all of that means.

We've talked about some of the programs you have, and I know that there's a couple more that I want to touch base with you on.

There's one called "Secret of the Cardboard Rocket," so that one, the title is wonderful.

That's a great idea.

It's like, what is that about?

- [Kate] Yeah, that's a great kids show about some kids who use their imagination to travel through the solar system.

So they spend the night outside building a cardboard rocket and then take a trip through the solar system.

- Oh wow, well that'll be, I don't wanna give too much away because you wanna experience that.

And then one of the other ones too, and there are a couple other ones as well, but one of the events that goes on in late April and early May is called "Star Spangled Banners," which first thing is, how does that relate to anything regarding outer space, the moon, the sun, whatever.

So what is "Star Spangled Banners?"

- [Kate] Yeah, "Star Spangled Banners" is a program created by the previous Director of the Plantarium, Dale Smith, about astronomical things on flags around the world.

And so he created a number of shows over the years, and they were originally slide shows if everybody remembers what slides are these days.

And so those, he carefully scanned them and digitized them and sort of recreated the shows in a digital format so we can still enjoy them today.

And so it's great to be able to continue to see some of those fantastic shows that he created.

- [Steve] So you can wonder why that particular country's flag has a star or a crescent moon or the sun.

- [Kate] There's a lot of constellations and stars and moon on many flags around the world.

So it's an interesting topic.

- [Steve] Well, and you raised an interesting point too, that he created those on basically 35 millimeter slides and probably some people will remember the carousels, (SFX) kaching, kaching, kaching, and then trying to coordinate that with audio, music, whatever, voice.

You've got a whole different system there now.

So talk a little about the technology that you employ in the planetarium when you do these shows.

- Yeah, it's now more like a digital movie theater where we've got computers and fancy projectors that are projecting the images up onto the dome.

And so it's certainly a different environment being able to have full video, not just static slides, but brings its own challenges for sure.

- Yeah, but obviously a lot easier than trying to coordinate three slide projectors and four cassette tapes and some other, yeah, whatever back in the old days of trying to keep all of that in sync.

Not that digital technology doesn't have its challenges, you mentioned, but yeah.

A couple other things too.

There's one called "Forward!

To The Moon" because that we're increasingly now talking about going back to the moon because you said we haven't been there in quite some time.

No one's been there in quite some time.

Talk a little about what that program is gonna be about.

- Yeah, so since the Apollo program, humans haven't been back to the moon.

A lot of spacecraft and robots, both from governments and private organizations have sent things now, but humans haven't been back.

And so this program is a few years old, but it's looking forward to the Artemis program.

And so the NASA attempt to go back to the moon here in the coming years and the next, or the first Artemis manned mission maybe in a year or so.

I think the schedule is still fluid at this point.

But yeah, that'll be not necessarily landing on the moon initially, but doing sort of an orbit again, sort of like happened during the Apollo program and then ultimately perhaps landing near the South Pole of the moon and perhaps leading to a more permanent- - Yeah, like a base on moon in some kind.

Right out of science fiction obviously.

But you mentioned the fact too that we haven't been back there since basically the '70s, that means there are several generations of children who have not experienced the fact that humans went to the moon back in the '70s.

So it'd be a huge event to see that.

And especially the way now the technology has changed because gosh knows they had computers, but not like we have now.

That's always been an astounding thing that given that level of technology they could do that in the 1960s and in the '70s like that.

Well we've talked about all the things that are coming up in the short term.

What are some of the plans that you might be thinking about beyond this spring, this summer, that kind of thing?

- Yeah, so every semester, we've got a new set of public shows.

And last summer, I also did a couple of runs during the summer as well for families even during the daytime could come and maybe do something.

And so I'll likely do that again, still working on the schedule.

But we unfortunately had some technical issues at the end of the month or end of the year in December.

And so we didn't get to see the classic Christmas shows that we normally show every year.

And so I think we might do a Christmas in July run of shows so people don't have to wait a full year to see them again if they wanna come in July.

So yeah, stay tuned I guess for the details on that schedule.

And this semester, we've also been opening up the observatory for more public observing.

So in the past, it's largely just been after, on clear nights after planetarium shows.

But we do use the observatory for our classes as well where students come basically for a class.

And so we've opened those up to the public as well, and you can find information about those on our webpage and social media.

- [Steve] Yeah, and if you go to the website, because I obviously looked at some of that too.

I mean there's a huge amount of information there, really ideas and programs that really do kind of pique your interest a little about, oh, I have to take a look at this.

So there's a lot of neat stuff on there.

And again, I say that in a way too that wants you to learn more about it.

It's not a static situation or it doesn't come across as, oh, this is really quiet, not so exciting science.

There's a lot of ways to position it.

You guys have done a really good job with that.

When you look at how people view what you do in terms of being astronomy, science, does that maybe sometimes make people think, oh, physics, oh, astronomy, oh, I don't think I wanna, I'm afraid of that, I don't wanna think about how difficult that is.

How do you overcome the fact that a lot of people are like, "Well that's way beyond what I could really understand or want to get immersed in."

What's the first thing you kind of say to them?

- We certainly hear that from students when they're thinking about what classes to take.

But yeah, I think generally for the public, they recognize it as a theater, as a place to come and have a good time as well as learn -[Kate] a little bit of science.

Like we talked about earlier, I think looking at the sky and astronomy sort of speaks to us on a primal level in some ways.

And so anybody can enjoy that, whether they do it as a profession or not.

There are lots of amateur astronomers who just love looking through their telescopes, and that's how I started as well.

- And I think the other thing is too, we are far enough away from intense light areas.

We're not in a city per se like Toledo or Detroit or Cleveland.

We have dark skies out here yet to some degree because I remember I had somebody visiting from New York State and one of the first thing he said was, "Oh my gosh, you can see the stars out here."

Because everything was so metropolitan, so densely populated that the sky didn't look like it does here.

You couldn't see the things that we have the opportunity to see when the skies are clear.

So that's something we should probably take advantage of and make sure we get to the planetarium, get to the observatory, and be able to take advantage of the fact that we still don't have that huge amount of light pollution that a lot of places deal with now.

And that is probably a challenge for you guys as well, even though we are sort of rural-ish.

- Yeah, there's quite a few lights on campus, so it can be a challenge, but we can still easily look at things like the moon and planets and some other nebulations like that.

- [Steve] You just call campus ops, "Just shut down all the lights on campus today."

- I wish you were that easy.

- [Steve] Well we could just do it, just find where that switch is and go, "Oh yeah, we're shutting everything off on the west and north side of campus, no problem."

What could possibly go wrong, right?

Well hey, thank you so much for coming on, and we really appreciate all these things because it's so informative and so creative the way you guys go about this.

You just read like say the titles of these that makes you want to go see them.

And people can go to your website.

It's real simple to do.

You just type in BGSU planetarium, this all pops up, and you can look at all the different events, lots of times and days available.

So if you can't make the first one, chances are you'll get an encore performance you can get to.

And while you're looking at that one, there's some other things that come up.

So yeah, a lot of great variety and a lot of great informative, entertaining material there, so thank you so much.

- [Kate] Yeah, thank you.

- Great.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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