THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249 www.usm.maine.edu/planet
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70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N 70.2667° W
Altitude: 10 feet below sea level
Founded January 1970
Julian Date: 2459299.18
2020-2021: C
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Exploratorium XXXII: A Past Moment
Location
Southworth Planetarium
Time
A moment in 2019
The preceding calm. Five minutes remaining. Above dimly lit console,
boundless midnight black. Quietly, he pressed the button, securing it fast
into the down position. He then focused intently on the dome arc touching
the back cove. His eyes followed its curve extending toward the outer
reaches: the unbounded dark poised above quiet theatre. The stars fade in,
at first mere suggestions of lights that quickly sharpened into distinct
points. Another button pressed and a gibbous moon snapped on at once;
its luster casting an interplay of light and shadow into the dome. The
once barren vacuum revealed rows of vacant seats; reclining up toward the
luminous infinitude. He turned a knob abruptly, and the moon rapidly
contracted into a crescent and careened below the horizon. Its phantom
descended along the black mesh wall before it vanished into the lower
shadows.
Suddenly, a deep red light emerged from the console and swept along the
firmament. He gripped the red LED flashlight and cast its faint cone onto
the wall chart. "Waning crescent....rising at 2:47 a.m....under
Pegasus...hardly anyone will see it. Let it be....Jupiter in
Gemini...setting soon with Sun...meteors, sporadic...ISS, only visible at
4:34 - 4:39 a.m...in the nether world with Venus and the Moon...mention,
but only in passing...Ursa Major looming along the zenith, the gazelle's
foot falls front and center...."
He turned from the chart and twisted another knob: an eerie glow shone
through the star field. Within the glow, distant rafters, all ashen gray,
almost Victorian; a haunted belfry echoing the hunchback's lamenting wails;
the Tower of London; Parisian catacomb; baroque era organ loft. The dust
shrouded lattice work had been scarcely touched and barely frequented in
the interminably long half century that had passed since the construction.
He was there twice; the first time almost twenty years earlier, to assist
others in some wiring. The others had long since left; and in their
prolonged absence, they became strange and in time, mythical, they might
never have existed, or, they were still there in the rafters, about to
descend from the consuming darkness.
"Orion immersed in the Sun," he whispered, snapping off the back drop
lights and returning his attention to the chart. "Scorpius rising....the
devil eye Antares lurking in the southeast; Milky Way's outer reaches
setting. All looks in place."
He twisted off the red light and listened for the stampede of footfalls
that would soon resound through the corridor. But, not yet. It was
the last minute: the final moments before the cheerful onslaught would
arrive to make the dome rock like a stadium. Before their arrival, the
respite within the eternal: along his periphery, the dragon conquering
Hercules; just beyond his view, Capella, the Winter Hexagon star hidden
Banquo-like in the summer evening's northern sky.
He knew it wasn't the grand Hayden sphere; the topless summits of Mauna
Kea; or the Harvard-Smithsonian center where minds had wandered so far
afield. But, he knew what it was: an unfrequented pond tucked away
amongst distant forest groves. A simple, unheralded mirror pool where the
Universe cast a meager reflection, open to both scrutiny and admiration.
In the winter, silvered and quiet; in autumn, ablaze with ember foliage.
Hidden, but no less wondrous for all that...a looking glass for a
self-aware cosmos...a cauldron of stars contained within the hidden upper
world.
And, then, the tumult...the pounding feet and hints of yelling children...a
button pressed and the stars melted into nothingness. Another knob twist
and the dome lights brightened into a noonday luster. He pushed up a
slider, and ethereal tones enlivened the once serene dome. He
straightened his tie, moved from behind the console and toward the door.
"Let's have some fun," he murmured before turning the door knob. A moment
later an inundation of restless human energy flooded the theatre. The
next planetarium show was about to begin.
On May 3rd, after more than a year of imperturbable dormancy, the
planetarium will reawaken to scenes like those just described.
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