In my frantic last minute rush to find a science lecture to attend, the American Museum of Natural History offered a talk about the upcoming things to look for in the sky throughout the winter season. After having just watched Interstellar, this was probably the closest I was going to get to the stars (thankfully). We found ourselves walking down the hallway decorated with images of astronauts floating in space, rushed into an elevator, and entering a dark room with lights coming from the floor. Yes, we did arrive about fifteen minutes late – but only enough to miss the beginning of one of the speakers review a series of slides discussing where else to observe the night sky throughout the North Eastern region.
Thinking that this was how the rest of the evening was going to go – slides projected onto a unique screen above us, I was disheartened and disappointed that I paid $13.50 to see it. The next speaker was Joe Rao, a weatherman from somewhere far off and beyond (I’m funny, I know) to discuss the major star features to see in the night sky. The screen projected a spherical panorama of the night sky in Manhattan and was able to reduce the atmospheric lights to truly bring out the stars. Rao taught us how to look for specific clusters and constellations, such as Pegasus, Andromeda, and Orion. He also mentioned a faint cloud that was a galaxy, a very many lightyears away. At that point, I realized, you must be really far away when they stop measuring you in distances and in a unit similar to time. He spoke like he was predicting the weather for the following week – but that’s the weatherman for you.
The speaker after was Ted Williams, who basically did the same thing but with more obscure constellations and at a quicker – hard to keep up with pace. It also did not help that every time I looked in one direction at the screen and then in another, the after image of the previous would still be glimmering with the current – leaving me actually seeing stars. He pointed out Cassiopeia, Perseus, Taurus, the Big Dipper and some other things. To help us locate these things, he briefly pointed out other “easier to find” constellations (they’re all the same to me) and in the projections, the projectionist outlined the figures of the characters in the sky. Also, I learned that you can connect the stars however you like, but they do not clearly make the suggested image (ex: Pegasus, a box with three protruding lines does not make a winged, perhaps a sad octopus instead).
After the presentations, we had an opportunity to go into the terrace for hot chocolate and cookies. With a hot beverage in our hands and snacks, we waited on lines to telescopes and binoculars to see some of the mentioned constellations. Sadly, I could not really differentiate between a lot of the things seen except for the red eye of Taurus – because it was red.
All in all, it was a good introduction into astronomy and star gazing on a kind winter night.
