(cheerful music) - Hello, and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

The upcoming April 2024 Eclipse has many us of looking at the skies, but Bowling Green State University, the BGSU Planetarium makes astronomical viewing available pretty much year round.

Joining us is the planetarium director, Dr. Kate Dellenbusch.

Want to welcome you to The Journal.

And obviously, everybody's kind of excited about the April eclipse, but I guess what we should be aware of too, that things are going on in the sky all the time and you folks at the planetarium have programs for that, and of course, have classes that get taught there.

So talk a little about the planetarium, a little bit of its history and what you're doing right now.

'Cause obviously people are paying more attention now with this eclipse in a few months.

- Sure.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me today.

The planetarium is open mostly during the academic year, but probably also will be open in the summer a little bit more in the future.

But we have regular programming, so there are planetarium shows which put pictures and video up on the dome along with sound and music and things.

Basically like sort of a movie, an astronomy movie up on the dome.

And so we have regular shows throughout the academic calendar and we change a little bit from month to month.

And we have a couple more shows coming up yet this semester on... (laughs) - [Steve] Well, December 16th and 17th.

- Yeah.

December 16th and 17.

So this semester anyway, we're having shows on Saturdays at 11:00 AM and Sunday at 7:30 PM.

- Ah, okay.

Now, when you talk about putting programs up in the dome, I guess you can actually sort of project with the technology you have.

And I know that there's been some renovations over there, some updating, things like that, so it really is an immersive experience of sound and visual.

But you can actually put the sky up inside the dome and then demonstrate things, teach things, show how things move through the sky, that sort of thing.

So that's the kind of things people would experience.

- Yeah.

So at the beginning of every show, give a little bit of a kind of star talk, what's up in the sky currently if we have clear skies.

Yeah, so we had, originally, when the planetarium was first built in 1984, there was a Minolta, big projector, that's still in the middle of the room.

And so it was able to put the stars up on the dome and some other effects, and then that in conjunction with a whole bunch of slide projectors at the time to make the pictures up on the dome.

And then in 2014, we had an upgrade to a digital system where it's using basically two kind of big fancy computer projectors, essentially, that together put full dome video up onto the dome.

- Yeah, and probably compared to the previous system, which was basically analog.

Slide, when you mentioned slides, people go, "What do you mean, slide projector?

What's that?"

It's probably, yeah, much more a simpler thing for you guys to do, obviously because it's digitized.

It's computerized.

How large is the seating in the planetarium?

- Yeah.

We have 114 seats under a 40-foot dome.

- Ah.

So yeah.

So plenty of room in there.

So when you teach classes in there, because obviously physics and astronomy is the department that the planetarium falls under, outside groups when they come in, what kind of things are they interested in or what kind of things do you present for them?

- Yeah, so besides our regular public shows, we are available for sort of rental, in a sense, where groups can reserve the planetarium.

And oftentimes, that's school groups, but also other groups from the community who maybe just wanna come and have a individual showing.

Birthday parties, have had a couple of those this year.

Things like that.

It's available for that.

And you can choose what show you'd like to see or what program you'd like in those cases.

- Yeah.

Now what are the range of some of the programs?

Like if I was interested, what would be the menu for me to choose from?

- Sure.

Yeah.

So, although of course we are astronomers or I'm an astronomer, and normally we think of planetarium as an astronomy sort of venue, we do have a range of programs across other disciplines too.

Biology, history, culture.

- [Steve] Interesting.

- So not only astronomy, but often those shows will still try and make connections to astronomy as well.

- Yeah.

Now, one of the things, because we run a, we call it an interstitial, it's a little short segment piece that runs between some of the longer-form programs, and it's called Stargazers.

It comes out of the astronomy department down at Florida Gulf Coast University.

And they're always showing the constellations and all the different things.

Well, there's the bear and there's this.

For most people, I mean, I look at those and just go, "I don't see the whatever moving across the sky."

Do people ask you about those and say, "Okay, I know I'm supposed to be able to see the Big Dipper, but come on, I can't figure out where it is."

How do you kind of help people figure out if you put those four stars together, you can see this?

'Cause sometimes I just don't see it, but that's just me.

- Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just, I think our human brain is good at seeing patterns and things.

So throughout human history, people looked up at the sky and every culture came up with different stories for what different constellations were.

And really probably to help pass that on to the next generation.

It's easier to tell it with a story than just say, oh, this star, this star, this star is something.

It's sort of abstract.

And so, yeah, there are 88 constellations, officially, that we still name an astronomy today.

And with the planetarium, we've got the benefit of being able to project those kind of figures, images, sort of art up on top of the stars along with them to help people's imagination and seeing those patterns.

- Yeah, because one of the things I know they talk about, and they'll say, "Oh, tonight you'll be able to see Mars if you look over in this part of the sky."

Okay.

So it's a bright light in the sky.

And yet I guess if you're attuned to that and are familiar, but for the average person, I think sometimes it's like, "Well, okay, I guess I'm looking at Mars.

Maybe I'm looking at Neptune for all I know."

When you talk about those constellations, are there some that are more important to us in terms of culture, or more important to us from an astronomical perspective as opposed to-- you mentioned 88 of them-- are there some that are more impactful than others?

- Well, there's some that are made up of brighter stars, so they're easier to see.

So as we're heading into winter here, Orion is a prominent winter constellation for us in the Northern Hemisphere.

And so it's made up of kind of three distinctive stars making up Orion's belt and other fairly bright stars.

So that's usually easy for people to find in the sky.

- Okay.

I'll look and see if I can see it then.

- See if you can see it.

- Where in the sky should I look for that right now?

Roughly.

- Yeah.

So right now, as it's getting dark and sort of later into the evening, it'll be over in the eastern sky.

So it's just starting to come up for us as it gets higher in the sky as we head deeper into winter.

- Yeah, because I say, and I know that when we watch these short-length programs that we have, they'll point out different things you'll go out and look and it's like, "Okay, well I guess I'm looking at it," but it is kind of, yeah, I guess it takes a little bit of training, obviously a lot of training to really focus on it too.

When you have different groups in, and obviously you probably have groups that are there for educational purpose, what are some of the things that they're interested or what are some of the questions that they ask you after you've done your presentation?

Things like that.

Are there things they're more interested in than others?

- Yeah, I mean, kids often ask a lot of questions, which is great and I love seeing that curiosity.

That's really what science is about.

It's about asking questions.

And yeah, so things usually about the show, something maybe that caught their attention in the program that they're curious about.

- Yeah.

Well, and I guess we can back up.

The important thing here too is that, as you just mentioned, this is science.

And I guess the trick is and the skill that you folks have is to get people to actually admire science, think it's entertaining and educational.

Because it's one of those things that we look at something we go, "Oh, science, I don't really want to get involved in that."

But this is a way to kind of pull them into that and say, "Yeah, this is why you need to know these things and this is science."

So we come back, we'll talk a little more with Dr. Kate Dellenbusch, Director of the BGSU Planetarium here on The Journal.

Thank you for staying with us here on the Journal.

We're talking with Dr. Kate Dellenbusch, Director of the BGSU Planetarium.

You've talked about some of the technology used to project things on the inside of the planetarium dome, but obviously, it's an observatory, there's a telescope there.

So talk about the kind of telescope and the technologies involved in that because I think when people look at the dome behind us, they probably don't realize there's a telescope in that.

That this actually is a planetarium observatory.

So talk about some of that technology.

- Yeah, so the planetarium is the big dome that's in the picture that we see.

And then up on the roof of that physical sciences building is the telescope itself.

So there's another smaller dome up there that you can see.

And so our big telescope is in that dome on the roof, and it's a about a half meter telescope which tells us kind of the bigger the telescope, the more light-gathering power it has and the fainter things we can potentially see.

So bigger is better, generally.

And we use that somewhat in classes.

Students have opportunities to go and go to a star gaze where they can look through the telescope and other smaller telescopes that we put up on the roof as well.

And then the observatory is also open to the public after planetarium shows on Sundays, currently.

And so if it's clear, happens to be clear after the show, we'll take people up to the roof and they get a chance to look through the telescope as well.

- Oh, wow.

That's pretty cool then.

Because most of our experience will be with the telescope that we got when we were kids or whatever.

Now, maybe if you're into this as an adult, you've got something a little nicer than that, but I guess to some degree, having a telescope is better than no telescope at all.

But obviously, if you're looking through something that's an inch and a half in diameter, it's not going to give you the same sort of feel that this will.

When you're up there looking at all of that, I mean, what are some of the things that you guys use the telescope for in terms of your professional work?

- So it doesn't get used so much for professional astronomy.

We do have some students who do some projects with it to kind of learn how to use a telescope and CCD camera that's attached to the telescope, but also just to take pictures, astrophotography kind of images as well.

So it's mostly a kind of teaching instrument or just a public observatory.

And it's great for looking at planets.

That's usually a target that we'll show.

If there's a planet up in the evening, that's one of the things that we like to show the public.

Getting to see Jupiter's moons or Saturn's rings, things like that.

- Okay, now when you look through that and you're looking at the things you just described, how will they present themselves?

Will we see light or will we actually see an image that looks like something just other than a pin of light?

- Yeah, you'll see an image of the object created by the telescope.

So one of the kind of really cool things about astronomy is if you look up at the sky or you look through a telescope, the light that was once on that object is the actual photon that's entering your eye.

And so we're getting a little bit of light that's come directly from that source or reflected off that source.

- Now, what planet would you be looking for?

If there is one right now that's visible, what, right now, would be the one you'd be looking at?

- Yeah, so we've had Saturn and Jupiter up in the sky in the evening lately.

Saturn is kind of set by the time it's much past sunset these days, but Jupiter is still prominently in the south currently.

- Yeah.

Now you're talking about the light that obviously we're seeing.

How old is that light by the time it gets here?

Because obviously, it's not real time.

It's traveling how far from Jupiter to get here, for instance?

- Yeah, so it depends what we're looking at.

So things in the solar system, it's not terribly long that the light's been traveling.

So from the Sun to the Earth, for example, is eight minutes.

It'll be to longer to the other planets farther away from the sun than we are.

But other more distant objects, it can be thousands or even millions of years if we're looking at other galaxies.

- And one of the things we talk about is, I think sometime we see movies and they give us sort of a representation of what goes on, but a lot of things make it seem a lot simpler than it really is and a lot more instant than that.

Do you ever have people talk to you about, "Well, I was watching, you know, The Martian and could this really happen this way?

Could they see that, could they do that sort of thing?"

I mean, how much of that?

I know that some movies are better at than others, but do sometimes as a professional astronomer, you go, "Really?

Wow, you put that in that movie that you're misleading people so badly."

Or, "Oh, they got that right."

That kind of thing.

Do you feel like that sometimes when you watch a science fiction movie or something that chose to be an actual representation of space travel and astronomy?

- Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, oftentimes, movies of course do take artistic license so it's more exciting or whatever than it maybe really would be.

A good example is in almost every science fiction program, there's always, they're flying through an asteroid belt or something like that having to dodge the rocks.

And really, while there are lots and lots of asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, they're really far apart.

They're small compared to the distances that we're talking about.

So if you were so unlucky to nearly run into one, you're not gonna- - [Steve] You almost have to try to run into one?

- Yeah.

But that wouldn't be very exciting to see.

- It is interesting because yeah, it's like the danger.

And then they talk about the fact that there's all this junk floating around now that we've put up into space over the last 60, 70, a hundred years now.

And they talk about all the things that are floating around.

Is there really that much of a danger of collision even with that or not?

- Yeah, I mean, humans have put a lot of things up into orbit and so it is a concern for astronauts that are up there for the Space Station and because things are go moving so quickly, even really tiny fragments from a satellite or something can do damage.

- [Steve] And about how fast are we talking?

- Gonna put me on the spot?

(laughs) - Well, roughly speaking, yeah.

It depends, I'm sure.

- Yeah, it depends, but many tens of thousands of miles per hour.

- And so what you were gonna say is even if it's really small, at that speed, it's gonna really hurt if it hits you.

- Yeah.

- It's gonna do some damage.

- Absolutely.

- Now, when we have situations, we haven't had one recently, where things fall out of orbit, and I know I'm asking you stuff that, you know, we didn't really, you know... Is there the same thing there, is there a real fear that it's gonna land someplace given that by the time it comes through the atmosphere, it's usually probably in pretty small parts or it's burned completely up?

I mean, how big a threat is that to us when something comes out of orbit like that?

- Yeah, generally it wouldn't be.

Most things are gonna burn up in the atmosphere.

Something as big as the Space Station.

Although even that, most of it's solar panels would burn up in the atmosphere.

So in terms of our things that we've put up into orbit, it's not really too much of a danger, generally.

There are other meteorites, for example, things from little bits of debris left over from the formation of the solar system, many of which do cross Earth's orbit, and others that maybe we haven't discovered yet that are probably a bigger danger from that perspective.

- Than the things that we've, yeah.

Now recently too, I know they were promoting the fact, I was watching the news and they were saying, "Oh, there was like a four or five day period you could see the StarLink belt of satellites."

And I know that friends, we all went out and looked and we couldn't find them, but they were saying, "Oh, it's very easy.

They're right there."

I mean, how close are those satellites to us vis-a-vis some of the other elements or some of the other objects you've talked about?

- Yeah, so most of the satellites that humans have put up into orbit are actually pretty close to the surface of the Earth.

This is one of the things I like to show in the planetarium to school groups actually, is compared to the size of the Earth itself, they're 500 kilometers or so above the surface for many of them.

So not very high compared to the size of the Earth itself, but there are satellites that are much further out than that as well.

- And again, those are visible for most of us, just points of light.

I can actually see things coming by.

- Yeah, pretty much any night that you go and look up at the sky, if you watch for a little while, you'll see satellites as a point that's just moving across the sky.

- We may not think that they're satellites, we think, "Oh, it's something else flying by," but okay.

Well, we come back, we will talk a little bit more about things that are up above us and that sort of thing because it's interesting for lay people to be able to talk about this.

So, back in just a moment with Dr. Kate Dellenbusch, Director of the BGSU Planetarium here on The Journal.

Thank you for staying with us on The Journal.

Our guest is Dr. Kate Dellenbusch, Director of the BGSU Planetarium.

We've talked about a lot of things about the planetarium, things you've been doing, things you've done, but you're gonna celebrate a pretty important anniversary, and among the things you're talking about are gonna be a lot of the programs you have outbound and especially, obviously, with the eclipse.

But talk about the anniversary you're about to celebrate.

- Yeah, so the Plantarium opened in 1984, so we're coming up on the 40th anniversary in the spring.

And so we're planning to have programming surrounding that a little bit with our schedule next semester, including showing some of the initial shows, the first shows that were ever shown when Dr. Dale Smith opened the planetarium to the public.

And so the first program that he ever gave was one about the NASA programs called All Systems Go, which was appropriate for the opening of the planetarium.

And so planning on showing that next semester as well as a few others, kind of the first few programs that were ever given at the planetarium.

- And that was probably originally on like, 16 millimeter tape or film or whatever.

Now it's been digitized and probably enhanced as much as you can because obviously, sometimes the resolution of the film in those days wasn't the greatest in the world.

- Yeah, so there was a little bit of video associated with them, but also, the slide images originally.

- Oh, okay.

Sure.

- And so Dr. Smith digitized all of those programs that he had from over the - Over time.

Wow.

- And so we're fortunate to still be able to play them still today.

- Yeah, because in a lot of cases things like that sort of drift away, get discarded.

"Well, we'll never use those again.

They're out of date."

That sort of thing.

So it's good to know that he was on top of that enough to say, "Yeah, let's save all of that because at some point it becomes great archival material to look back on."

Obviously those programs are gonna look a little different than the ones you present now because they were done in different technology and that sort of thing.

When you went back to look through there, anything surprise you and you went back said, "Oh wow, look at that.

That's really different."

Or, "Didn't expect to see that," kind of a thing?

- Yeah, I'm just taking over the directorship after Dale sadly passed away a few months ago.

And so it's been interesting going back, and while I had been to many shows over the years, I didn't know all of the details of the opening of the planetarium, kind of the early shows.

So it's been fun to go back and watch those and try and pick out some to show next semester.

- Yeah, because presentations were different back then.

The whole arrangement of things, that sort of thing.

What are some of the programs, obviously you're gonna talk a little bit about the eclipse, but what are some of the other things you're thinking about or have already planned for 2024?

- Yeah, so it'll be a mix of these older programs, which actually have always, since even our upgrade in 2014, Dr. Smith had shown a kind of mix of things, both old and new.

And so I'll continue that a bit as well as some of the full dome video shows, including some that haven't been shown here before.

So show some new things for folks who come back again and again, as well as some kids shows as well.

And hopefully a little bit about the eclipse.

And then in addition to our normal public planetarium programs, we'll also be having a public lecture series leading up to the eclipse on April 8th.

And kind of an interdisciplinary look and the human experience surrounding eclipses.

So speakers from history, from literature, music, as well as astronomy and physics.

- Yeah, because a few shows ago we had a gentleman on who was Native American and we talked about the way the different tribes looked at their calendars.

And a lot of it was based on movement of the sun, movement of the moon, eclipses, things like that.

And I thought what was interesting is that he said different tribes had different calendars, different times of year where they started their calendar, but all of it was somehow connected to what they saw from the sky.

And that's another area where when movies look at eclipses, they portray it as events that happen that alter the way people are behaving and that sort of thing.

When you look at the eclipse this year, and I know that there's a lot of detail involved in a lot of the swath of this thing, but is there an expectation at the planetarium as this happens?

Are there things that people should sort of need to know or you want people to understand about what this actually is and what it means and doesn't mean?

- Yeah.

This eclipse is important for Ohio.

The path of totality is going across much of the state and really everybody in the state will have at least a partial solar eclipse, but the path of totality is special.

A totally eclipse looks very different, the experience is very different.

Even from a really, really good partial eclipse, it's a different thing.

I haven't actually seen a total eclipse myself yet, so I'm really looking forward to it and hoping for clear skies.

And so it's always been an important human experience.

It's been something that was mysterious for a long time till we understood that it's really just the moon passing in front of the sun for a few minutes.

So many cultures thought, you know, a dragon or something is eating the sun and it's really affected people and still does today, just the emotions of the experience of seeing totality.

And so with the lecture series, we wanna kind of bring that up a little bit.

What people have thought about eclipses and made connections to- - What they read into it that wasn't as, yeah.

- And so as we prepare for the eclipse, one of the important things is to make sure that you view it safely.

So during the partial phases of the eclipse, we wanna use eclipse glasses or other ways of safely viewing it so we don't damage our eyes.

But then during those few minutes, three minutes for us here in Bowling Green, of totality, we actually wanna take our eclipse glasses off 'cause at that point it's safe to view it.

In fact, you won't be seen very much if you don't take them off.

- Yeah, it'll be so dark.

It's like having welders glasses on you.

- [Kate] And then put them back on after totality ends.

- Well, and you mentioned the fact that we're gonna see three minutes of total eclipse.

The closer you get to the center of this path that rolls through, the longer the actual totality then, is that how it works?

- Yeah, the closer you are to the center of the path, the longer totality is, but that length also kind of varies across the path itself.

So different parts of the country at the center line will have different length of totality than we will here in Ohio.

- Yeah, because I watched a little bit of an animation that NASA had created, and obviously, we're starting in Mexico, if I understand it correctly.

And then it moves across Texas, Arkansas.

It varies a little bit in width, generally.

According to that, somewhere between like, a hundred and some miles to 125 miles wide, sometimes down to 115, and then as it starts to cross over, its speeds up, which is always...

I was watching, it's like, oh, it's going about 1500 miles an hour in the path of the shadow of the moon.

Well, by the time it clears into Canada and starts there, it's going like 3,500 miles an hour.

But you watch that and go, "Oh my gosh."

It's just incredibly watching the animation, let alone what the real thing is gonna be like.

It's gotta be something that... Now will this be something almost be like for a lot of us, a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing?

I mean, when's the next one that we might actually, here in Northwest Ohio, actually see anything close to this?

- Yeah, so the next one in Bowling Green won't be until 2099.

The next total eclipse.

- [Steve] There's a pretty good chance we may not be here for that one.

- Exactly.

Yeah.

So without traveling somewhere else in the world, this is our best chance to see one really in our lifetimes.

- Now, has anybody reached out, because I know one of the things that they're concerned about is the number of people that will try to get into this totality path, and obviously, we're part of that.

Have you guys gotten any contact about, hey, what are some of the things we need to know, in terms of like the emergency services people, things like that, about what should we expect, what shouldn't we expect?

Anything like that?

- Yeah, so we are planning a viewing event here at BGSU.

At the stadium, most likely.

So we'll have eclipse glasses.

I should have actually brought some of our nice Falcon BGSU eclipse glasses that'll be available for people.

- [Steve] And how would they attain, how would they get those?

- So if people come, they'll have a chance to get them.

- [Steve] They'll hand them out as they show up.

All right.

- And as that's going on, besides watching the eclipse, there'll be some other events, music and other exhibits and things that people can participate in.

- [Steve] Be a full multimedia experience then as well as the real thing.

- Right.

So the goal, speaking of the emergency management side of things, is we really want people to, if they come, come early and to stay late so that we can spread out that flow of traffic to help with that since, no doubt, there will be gridlock on the highways and things on the day as people are traveling.

- Well, thank you so much.

We're at the end of our time.

Obviously, people can Google BGSU Planetarium and see everything you guys have to offer and the information you've talked about today as well.

So we appreciate it, Dr. Kate Dellenbusch.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

You can check us out at WBGU.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

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