The Let There Be Night team is creating an original planetarium program that addresses outdoor lighting issues. We will also bundle related content from other providers onto a Let There Be Night DVD. Each segment would be a different chapter on the DVD, allowing multiple users to interweave the selected chapters that are most suitable for their facility and audience with their live presentations.
Let There Be Night Planetarium Program
The planetarium program will feature original narrated video that can be shown in a planetarium or be used as a stand-alone video. The main characters are two avatars, Galileo and a visitor from the future. The scenes are animation taken from a Second Life virtual world, noted below. Selectable chapters include:
- Trailers and (your) facility promotions
- Galileo and his major discoveries;
- Introduction to outdoor lighting issues;
- Quantifying light pollution;
- The future of telescopes and the night sky.
Galileo avatar: "Gosh, dim it all!"
Let There Be Night DVD for Multiple Users
Because the Let There Be Night DVD can hold more data than just the planetarium program, we will add new or existing dark sky resources that other parties have generously contributed with permission to duplicate. A tentative list of the optional content includes:
- Let There Be Night original planetarium program, which can be a stand-alone video as well;
- Saving the Night, written and narrated by David Levy, and re-distributed courtesy of the the Southeastern Planetarium Association;
- There Once Was a Sky Full of Stars, written by Bob Crelin and illustrated by Amie Ziner; includes complete narrated video as well as individual components;
- “Ant Dances for Light”, a Pacific Northwest Nations story told by Dovie Thomason (Kiowa Apache/Lakota). The Day and Night audio recording, exceprted from the Lunar and Planetary Institute’s SkyTellers series, is used with permission of LPI, Thomason, and Lynn Moroney;
- A video capturing the magnificence of the night from Tyler Nordgren's tour of US National Parks; images and narration courtesy of Nordgren;
- A general introduction (~6 minutes) to outdoor lighting issues; video written by John McMahon and produced by Danl DuRall;
- A PowerPoint template for dark sky advocacy, based on material contributed by Susan Harder;
- Stellarium planetarium script on magnitudes and the respective diminishing starfields, courtesy of Karrie Berglund;
"DarkSkies", an animated video segment conveying the impact of light pollution on sidewalk astronomy (right); courtesy of Tim Brothers at San Francisco State University.- "In This Light" song performed by John Kaufmann and Dan Dennis; courtesy of Starball.
- Globe at Night teacher and family activity packets, and resources from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.
The Let There Be Night team will post program notes, images, activities, and other supporting material online at this website. Distribution of the DVD will begin in late 2008.
SkyTellers: "The stories were not meant to explain these mysteries; rather, they were told to help people pay attention to our world." -Lynn Moroney
Sample Program
The Let There Be Night DVD contents are diverse so that multiple users can tailor it to their needs. Libraries, youth groups, city councils, astronomy clubs, classroom teachers, and planetarians can all find material that serves their respective audiences. Below is a sample outline of a program that could be presented in a portable planetarium:
- Open to a darkening sky with pre-recorded “Ant Dances for Light”, a Pacific Northwest Nations story told by Dovie Thomason (Kiowa Apache/Lakota).
- Introduce the need for light in modern society, yet allow participants to discover side effects of technology. Conduct in-dome demonstrations, using unshielded mini-flashlights in “candle mode” to guide participants to identify three aspects of light pollution (glare, light trespass, and sky glow) and to discover benefits of fully shielded lights.
- Present in-dome There Once Was a Sky Full of Stars, written by Bob Crelin and illustrated by Amie Ziner.
- Conduct a live, traditional presentation of constellations and celestial highlights at that time using the planetarium’s starfield.
- Introduce notion of magnitudes.
- Segue to the constellation Orion and present a live primer on how students and visitors contribute their observations of Orion to Globe at Night.
Spreading the Word: The Great Lakes Planetarium Association (GLPA) will distribute free copies of the Let There Be Night DVD to seven US regional planetarium associations and the International Planetarium Society for their respective members, and will ship individual requests at cost.
After the Visit
Let There Be Night is proposing to create a post-visit experience in the virtual world of Second Life for teens and adult visitors. There, avatars could interact with nightscapes within a Holodeck-like structure. For example, one could be immersed in an urban scene with various outdoor lighting. By adjusting the lighting fixtures and how the lights are used, the visitors can see the outcome of their actions on the nightscape, for better or for worse.
As of August 2008, a mockup of the structure is available on CoLab Island at http://slurl.com/secondlife/NASA%20CoLab/151/98/702. Designed by Itazura Radio of the Primagination Factory, the building contains a Great Hall and a domed hologrid. After the simulations are completed, the structure will move to IYA's Second Life island for 2009. Other IYA2009 dark sky exhibits will be within the structure as well.
Virtual Scenarios: In the virtual world of Second Life, visitors can experience the trade-offs of outdoor lighting and propose solutions for lessening the impact of the technology on society.
We encourge groups large and small to follow up their visits with a meaningful activity that addresses outdoor lighting. One school district in northern Indiana is coordinating a significant observing campaign. Fifth and eighth graders will experience the bulk of the planetarium program in a dedicated visit and conduct the subsequent stargazing experiment. The students in grades 3, 4, 6, and 7 will experience grade-appropriate excerpts from the program during their regular planetarium visit. The project staff will meet with the school principals to coordinate implementation of Let There Be Night. The staff will then visit each of the 13 schools once to present to the teachers the roles of students and teachers alike. A teacher packet and supporting web page will give further details and guidance.
A select group (i.e., willing and able to participate at a greater level) of a few students from each school will have an elevated role in the project. The select group and their parents will attend a more intensive lesson in the planetarium. All 6,800 students in grades 3-8 will observe Orion during a two-week span in February or March 2009 that coincides with the international Globe at Night (GaN) program. The number of stars they see and count suggests the level of light pollution at the respective sites. They will match their observations of Orion with limiting magnitude star charts posted online at GaN.
Concurrently, the select teams of students from each of 13 schools within the district will quantify sky glow with hand-held Sky Quality Meters (SQMs). Each night, cloudy or clear, they will record the sky glow near school grounds and post the SQM values the next day in school. In class, teachers will guide students to share their observations and analyze the data. Students in grades 3-8 will graph the visual limit of the stars they’ve observed over two weeks. Additionally, students in grades 5 and 8 will graph the concurrent SQM readings. Each school will contribute both its average SQM values and visual observations to Globe at Night. Class discussions will connect student observations to local dark sky issues.
The select group representing each school will meet a second time in the planetarium for follow-up. After reviewing and discussing the district-wide results, they will present their findings both to the school district’s energy conservation coordinator and to the School Board of Education.
Recommended Reading: Sky Lore from Planet Earth: stories from around the world...Orion. Author/illustrator/planetarian Dayle Brown shares the lore of Orion from multiple cultures in both hemispheres.
Other Planetarium Programs for IYA2009
Let There Be Night will celebrate the International Year of Astronomy by embracing the US theme "Dark Skies are a Universal Resource." However, it is not the only planetarium feature in the pipeline. The team who is producing the 400 Years of the Telecope documentary will also partner with the planetarium community to create a companion program Two Small Pieces of Glass.
