THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249 www.usm.maine.edu/planet
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
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Exploratorium XXXII: A Past Moment
Location
Southworth Planetarium
Time
A moment in 2019
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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