Join the San Juan College Planetarium's from Earth to the Universe!


Night sky picture of stars and nebula, San Juan College Planetarium, AstroFriday

Showtimes are at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and stargaze afterward (weather permitting) is at 8:30 p.m.

This 30-minute full dome video presentation was produced by the European Southern Observatory. A full dome show is an immersive audio-visual presentation displayed on the entire planetarium dome at once and is filmed from the viewer’s perspective being at the center of the action. The video begins by taking the viewer from our starting vantage point on Earth and gives a brief history of our understanding of the universe from antiquity. We are then propelled outward into the universe to see the planets, nebulas, star clusters, the Milky Way galaxy, other galaxies and galaxy clusters as though we were flying through them.

The full dome presentation will be followed by a short sky show, using the Planetarium’s star projector to depict the night sky of early to mid-October.

If weather permits, we will offer a free public stargaze with telescopes at 8:30 p.m. in the Connie Gotsch Theatre courtyard behind the planetarium after the last show. The stargaze will last a maximum of one hour. There is no capacity limit for the stargaze. The headliner objects for this evening will be the slight Gibbous Moon and the spectacular planet Saturn. Binary star targets for the evening feature the gold-and-blue double Albireo and the double orange stars of 61 Cygni and Bessel’s Star of the Northern Cross as well as our binary north star, Polaris.

If weather conditions are particularly good, we may also see such deep-sky objects as the globular cluster M13 in Hercules, the ghostly Ring Nebula, M57, in Lyra, as well as the star-studded Wild Duck Cluster, M11, in Aquila and the “Dumbbell Nebula” M27 in Cygnus. We may even be able to glimpse M31, the Andromeda Spiral.

Date

October 11, 2024

Time

6:30 pm & 7:30 pm

Location

SJC Planetarium

For more information

Call David Mayeux at 505-566-3361, or email at mayeux_d@sanjuancollege.edu. Further information about Planetarium presentations is available on the web on the SJC Planetarium Facebook page.

The planetarium reserves the right to substitute shows. It is also possible (though not probable) for there to be a change in a show's date due to unforeseen circumstances. 

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