the article

Stars Above Mountains
An Outreach Program Linking Nature and the Sky
A modest-sized telescope at one of the main AMC lodges, Highland Center, was used day and night to get people looking ‘up’
Douglas Arion, PhD
Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Carthage College
Director, Carthage Institute of Astronomy
President, Galileoscope LLC
[email protected]
You, the reader, are a member of the choir. No one reading
this needs to be convinced that the sky is important, and no
reader needs to be told how connected we all are – as individuals and as inhabitants of Earth – to the entire Universe
around us. But the vast majority of the public doesn’t think
that way, and, frankly, if we, the converted, don’t do something about that nobody else will. My professional life is
now dedicated to solving that problem – getting the public to
understand, at a deep level, how important the Universe is to
their own existence.
How to achieve that aim? We need to provide people with
real information – so they know what is out there and how it
connects. And, we need to give them a moving experience,
so that they will internalize and feel the connection.
We’ve put together a partnership between the Carthage
Institute of Astronomy at Carthage College (where I am on
the faculty) and the Appalachian Mountain Club (the AMC).
The AMC is the nation’s oldest outdoors and nature organi34
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zation, founded in 1876. They manage trail systems, lodges,
and high mountain huts, and conduct many educational and
outdoors programs throughout the northeast. Over half a million visitors a year take part in AMC activities. But, until we
got involved with them, the programming reached from the
ground to the mountaintops – and didn’t include the sky. So,
this partnership is perfect – the AMC already has a large
nature-oriented audience, and we have expertise in astronomy and outreach, and students who are trained in astronomy
and telescopes to work with the public. Perfect!
We received financial support from the National Science
Foundation, which has allowed us to acquire more equipment and to support undergraduate students who intern over
the summers here in northern New Hampshire. Donors have
provided us with resources for additional gear, including
several 4.5 inch Starblasts that are installed at four of the
high mountain huts. Celestron was very generous to provide
us with one of their high-end mounts, on which we put one
of our aging, but fully functional, C11 tubes for our main
outreach telescope. Add to that a quiver of equipment from
my collection, including an 80mm carbon tube refractor
(which, with a lightweight mount, is hike-able up into the
mountains), and a PST solar telescope, and we have a reasonable collection of optics to show people the Universe. We
also utilize a dozen tablet computers, each of which has
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Left: A youngster gets to look right at the Sun, safely!!
Right: A great way to capture attention and draw audiences is to do daytime solar observing – as this hiker does next to
Greenleaf Hut just below the summit of mile-high Mt. Lafayette, guided by intern Zach Troyer.
planetarium software and a variety of other apps to connect
people with celestial happenings, along with green laser
pointers so participants can point to, and be pointed to,
celestial sights.
Our program has a number of major components. We work
with several different audiences:
• Members of the public (our primary audience), who (a)
pass through AMC facilities; (b) attend AMC events; and/or
(c) visit and stay at the high mountain huts
• AMC staff and volunteers, whom we train in astronomy
so they can include it in their ongoing programs
• Undergraduate astronomy and physics students, who
develop skills in engaging the public, giving presentations,
operating telescopes, and knowing the night sky.
There are several differences between the programs that we
conduct and what is typically done in outreach. First, I’m
not only an ATM and an amateur observer, but I’m also a
professional astronomer (which means I get to use big telescopes that you don’t get to look through, which is scientifically useful but not as much fun as gazing into an eyepiece!). This has a benefit in credibility with the audiences.
Second, the content of our presentations is aimed at showing and explaining the intricate connections among everything in the Universe. Sure – there is the usual ‘we are starSummer 2013
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dust’ content, where we talk about how AGB stars and
supernovas are responsible for providing all of those heavy
elements we need for life. It’s important to get people to
understand that large mammals (i.e., us) are here only
because an asteroid happened to impact the earth 65 million
years ago, taking out those meat-eating dinosaurs, and
affecting evolutionary patterns. But, most people don’t realize the continuing impact of cosmic rays (higher cancer
rates for long haul pilots, for example), or that animal coats
change because of shortening daylight, not lower temperatures (and, indeed, many of these animals are dying off
because they are changing to white and, with climate warming, now do so in a background that is no longer snow covered). People don’t know that the solar spectrum and the
color sensitivity of the human eye have the same wavelength dependence. These, of course, are not coincidences –
we (and the other life forms on Earth) have evolved to fit
our environment. The Earth is a ‘goldilocks’ planet –
formed in the right area of space to have the right mix of elements, at the right range from a star of the right temperature,
for the world we know to exist as we see it.
The pictures accompanying this article show many of the
things that we’re doing. First – we conduct workshops for
all of the AMC staff who engage the public. Most of these
individuals are experts in one or more areas of nature –
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Nightly observing is conducted by the students, and having
a go-to mount makes it much easier to slew from object-toobject quickly, essential when there are long lines of people,
and it’s already late (remember that northern NH is at 45 N
Latitude, so it doesn’t get dark until late during early summer). The students discuss each of the objects shown in the
context described earlier. This is not just a ‘look at this nebula….’ observing. This is an opportunity to show people
parts of the Universe they haven’t seen, and explain to them
how those kinds of objects have or do affect them. It’s
important for people to realize that planetary nebulae are a
source of mid-weight atomic species that are critical to formation of a planet (like ours). Showing Albireo, for example, is an easy way to discuss star colors and temperatures.
But here we then explain how the Sun’s temperature is critical to the type of light we receive and the distance at which
the Earth can be located to have a temperature where water
can exist as solid, liquid, and gas simultaneously – the right
environment for our kind of life to exist. The Moon? How
have impacts affected the formation of life on Earth? As I
hope you realize, we have tried to make sure that every
experience each of our visitors has is tied to something that
they will actually understand and feel, and motivate them to
both learn more and to act differently.
A young family gets to see the Sun for the first time, at a
session we did at the AMC’s Pinkham Notch center.
plants, animals, geology, and meteorology – but are generally not trained in astronomical topics. The workshops have
been very successful in both informing and training them, as
well as exciting them about the stellar canopy they see.
We’ve already seen these individuals add astronomy topics
to the content they deliver to AMC guests.
We have a group of student interns from Carthage who are
well versed in astronomy. All of them are required to have
done research with myself or another member of our department – and all have had at least one observing experience
with me at Kitt Peak or the Steward Observatory, so they
know what real observational research is like. Because they
carry the major burden of providing astronomy experiences
to visitors to the AMC, they need to be experts – they can’t
be the typical college intern who is only a gopher or helper.
These students set up and operated telescopes all day and
into the evening, whenever it was clear (which, most unNew-England-like, was most of the time this past summer!)
We have found that solar observing – both white light and
hydrogen alpha – is extremely engaging to neophytes. Few
if any of have ever observed the Sun before (most certainly
not in H-alpha), and in fact have been told not to look at the
Sun, so this is a special experience. They generally are
amazed at seeing sunspots and prominences, and are particularly blown away by the sheer size of these phenomena,
when described in terms of Earth diameters. The daytime
observing draws in many passers-by, who often then attend
one of our more formal programs, or who at least return in
the evening to observe through our telescopes again.
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This past summer we conducted weekly public lectures
(with observing following) at the AMC’s Highland Center
lodge. We drew good audiences – and had great feedback
and lots of questions, signs that they were actively engaged
and interested in what we presented. There isn’t enough
room here to fully describe the content of the presentation,
but, briefly, we cover the following:
• Distances and scales (how big and how far)
• Numbers of stars and galaxies (how many)
• The evolution of the Universe (how long) and the events
that allow our kind of life to exist
• Extra-solar planets and life in the Universe
• How our lives and the world around us connect to events
in space, in the past, present, and future
• Dark Skies Awareness and Preservation
• And a final punch line aimed to change the attitude of
audience members, summarizing the scales, sizes, and linkages, and why we, as a species, need to change our behaviors – the Pale Blue Dot.
Following the major presentations we have several smaller
sessions, each managed and run by one of the students. One
is on telescopes and telescope operation; a second is on how
to find things in the night sky and the great apps available
for astronomy; and the third is an in-depth presentation on
dark skies preservation. This last area is critical, and has
been very, very effective with this audience. Of course,
those who participate in AMC activities are already nature
and preservation oriented, but they don’t know about the
wide range of impact that poor lighting has on crime, health,
and animals, besides the obvious economic costs involved.
Throughout the summer we also conducted programs at the
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The high mountain huts along the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire are great sites to do public programs….if you don’t mind hiking a telescope up long, steep trails! Here this year’s student interns, KelliAnn
Anderson, Coty Tatge, and Zach Troyer, pose above Lakes of the Clouds Hut – high up on the shoulder of Mount
Washington.
Dark skies preservation is an important part of the programming. The topic resonates with visitors who are already nature
oriented, but don’t know about light pollution and its insidious effects. These sessions, conducted by KelliAnn Anderson,
were very successful.
AMC’s high mountain huts. These programs were similar to
those conducted at the lodges, but we utilized tablet computers to display our presentations, as there is no projection
capability up in the mountains. The tactile connection for
the audience seemed to be effective at engaging them, and
they were very excited to then take the tablets out under the
sky and see if they could identify stars, planets, and other
phenomena. We couldn’t, obviously, hike an 11” SCT up
five thousand feet on five miles of mountain trail – which is
why I built up a system consisting of a Stellarvue 80mm
refractor and a Universal Astronomics micro mount on a
carbon fiber tripod, which I can fit into a pack and hike,
along with clothes and other gear, up to the huts. There are
eight of these huts, separated by a days hike along the
Appalachian Trail. Each is self-sufficient, using wind and
solar power, and is operated by a team known as hut ‘croo’.
The croo members are all wonderfully energetic, and really
got into the chance to know more about the sky and to share
it with visitors. The huts are beautiful structures, and the
breakfasts and dinners that are served are fantastic. High up
and in wilderness, the skies at the huts are as dark as can be
found in the White Mountains area. Amazingly, one can still
see sky glow from some of the local towns, even those that
are relatively distant. That’s a great object lesson for our
audience, who can see the extent to which even smaller
communities can be contributing to light pollution. The hut
audiences are great – they’re captive! We set up our telescope with a Herschel wedge for solar observing in the
afternoon. After a scrumptious dinner, guests get to hear our
presentations and then go outside and observe. We get to
stay at the huts, too, so we can engage with the guests in the
evening and the next morning over breakfast. The students
and I were always inundated with questions and positive
comments every morning. We know we’re having a great
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effect on these audiences.
One of the other important things we’ve done is a very
extensive evaluation and assessment activity. Each of the
participants in one of our ‘formal’ programs is asked to fill
out a questionnaire, which was formulated with the assistance of Prof. Wayne Thompson in Carthage’s sociology
department. We’ve learned a lot from the responses to these
questionnaires, and our program next year will be even better thanks to what we’ve learned. But, more importantly, the
responses let us know that those who have gone through our
programs really have changed the way they look at things,
and the way they feel about themselves in the big picture.
We hope that the behavior changes they talk about in the
evaluation become permanent parts of their lives.
We’ve completed one year of our program, and have
resources to run it for at least two more years – and we hope
for decades to come. Working as an individual with a couple of students, we reached over 3000 people in just a couple of months, and many others were touched by AMC
staffers through their own programs during the summer. We
want more and more people to have the experience we’re
trying to provide, aiming for 5000 this coming year, and
hopefully 10,000 the next. We need to expand the ‘choir’ –
and get more and more people involved in promoting a
world view that incorporates a lot more than just their
world!
This coming year’s program schedule is shown on the AMC
website at www.outdoors.org/astronomy, as well as the site
for the Carthage Institute of Astronomy at
www.carthage.edu/astronomy. We hope that if you have the
chance to be in New England you’ll join us, and also tell
others about the wonderful programs that the AMC puts on.
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