Cache StarHouse:A Planetarium for Cache Valley
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What's New
Today there was a meeting between myself and Neil Dabb and Arno Copley from the . We have not been able to get a new department sponsor, so are going to create a non-profit organization and hope to eventually have a permanent science museum and planetarium in Cache Valley. If you'ld like to help, email me at info@cachestarhouse.org. If you are a teacher or a principal, see For Teachers for more details, or email me at info@cachestarhouse.org or call me at 801-971-0587.
Meanwhile, some MIT students launched a camera nearly to space on less than $150!. Below is the video, or their webpage is http://space.1337arts.com/
1337arts Icarus Project TimeLapse Video (Max Altitude: 93,000 ft) from Justin Lee on Vimeo.
I am in the process of collecting a board of directors so we can set up a non-profit organization to run this planeatarium project as an ongoing program. Our next meeting is going to be after the next Cache Valley Stargazers meeting on 5 June 2009 at 7:30 pm in room 115 of Old Main. If you are interested in participating in this, please e-mail me.
Cache StarHouse now has a presence on Twitter: twitter.com/cachestarhouse.
One of the activities for the International Year of Astronomy is Hubble's Next Discovery, You Decide. Anyone can go to http://youdecide.hubblesite.org/ and vote on which of six astronomical objects they want the Hubble Space Telescope to look at.
We got an artical in the Herald Journal! Stargazing in the daytime?.
There is an article about this project on the USU website! USU Physics Alum Awarded Zions Bank Grant to Boost Science Outreach
There will be an organizing meeting in the Logan City Library meeting room on Saturday, 17 January 2009 at 4:00pm. All residents of Cache Valley are invited.
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. A prominent event in it is the 100 Hours of Astronomy 2-5 April 2009. I am looking for volunteers to man telescopes for sidewalk astronomy on these days. Check out Neil DeGrasse Tyson's "Death by Black Hole" interview on FORA.tv. He covers black holes, asteroid extinctions, and what we can do about the second. It is absolutely hilarious.
The students at Cache High are going to be creating a music light show for the StarLab. Hopefully, we will be able to find someplace to set the StarLab up this summer and get the necessary equipment that we will be able to share this program with the community. Among the equipment needed will be a laptop, a projector, and good quality, portable speakers. Ideally, we would like to be able to get a Digitalis or a StarLab digital portable planetarium projector.
Why does Cache Valley need a planetarium?
The purpose for this project is to bring astronomy education closer to people who still have the valuable natural resource of a dark sky. There are two main reasons why Cache Valley is a good place for this:
1. It is home to Utah State University (USU) - one of the top universities in the world for undergraduate space research, yet it has no planetarium. Utah State is also my alma mater.
2. It is primarily a farming community. Most of the valley still has dark skies, but most people there probably don't realize what a resource that is because the resources for learning astronomy, such as the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, are too far to visit on a regular basis. Some school kids are lucky enough to make it to a planetarium on a school field trip, but many more would go if it didn't take a two hour drive.
Sky Clock
Sky clocks such as this one are used to forecast viewing conditions. White is bad, the darker the blue, the better. Remember to dress warm when going stargazing. There is also a simplified version of the skyclock available for cell phones.
How can I help?
Talk to the parent organization at your child(ren)'s school(s). I am not charging the schools this semester to bring the planetarium, but if this is going to be an ongoing project, I am going to need some support. If each parent organization, at each school the planetarium comes to this semester, contributes $100-$300 we should be able to continue running the program next year. If your school is not yet on the calendar, please contact your principal and let him/her know you'ld like the portable planetarium to come to your school
Come to the evening presentations. Suggested donation is $5, so we can continue doing this. You can also sponsor presentations on a weekend by providing a place to set the planetarium up in. It requires a room 21'x21' and 12' high with no obstructions. If you would like to schedule a Star Party or presentation for your Scout troop, youth group, after school club, or any other group, please e-mail me at info@cachestarhouse.org. I would like to be able to announce all such events on this webpage, and invite the public to come as well, but if you would like a private event, that would also be possible.
If you would like to make a more substantial contribution, please email me. Soon there will be a PayPal donation button on this page if you would like to help with bringing a planetarium to Cache Valley.
What is the current status?
If you are a teacher or principal from a Cache Valley school, please email me at info@cachestarhou.org to schedule a StarLab visit. There are currently six cylinders which we can develop programs around: Native American, Plate Tectonics, Weather, Constellation, Greek Mythology, and Northern Starfield. We will be ordering the Radio Sky cylinder set. If you are a Sixth Grade Science teacher, please let me know which two topics of Moon Cycles, Seasons, Solar System, and Scale & Cultures you would like to have presented. Otherwise, let me know what subjects and grades you teach, & we will work out an appropriate presentation. The schedule for when the StarLab will be at a given location, including for public evening presentations, is available here.