It seems like I only write while I’m on the road!

This message is coming from the Hamburg Planetarium, where I am visiting my colleagues Thomas Kraupe and Tim Horn to discuss ways of collaborating.  With modern planetariums being digital venues, we can now share content more easily than ever, but the technology requires effort to make it appear effortless:  one wants the technology to remain invisible in order for the message to take center stage, but that requires a lot of work.  Imagine, though, sharing a flight through the Universe inside two planetarium domes a world apart—one in Germany, say, and the other in San Francisco.  Of course, for a collaboration between Europe and the West Coast of the United States, there’s the nine-hour time difference to consider as well, but we’ll have to learn to work with that!

Hamburg marks the fourth stop on mmy Europen Tour.  Early on, I visited the Carl Zeiss Company in Jena, Germany, to see some of their latest technology showcasing “true black” video projection.  I then traveled up north to Fredrikstad, Norway, to meet with the spectacular technicians at projectiondesign, who created the video projectors we use in our planetarium (and in various places throughout the California Academy of Sciences).  And I then stopped by the offices of SCISS AB in Stockholm, Sweden, to catch up with old friends and strategize about how our content can work best with their sofware.

It takes a tremendous amount of skill and knowledge to create the remarkable visuals in modern planetarium shows and video productions—from the fundamental research that drives what we want to communicate, to the software and associated computer technology we use to create images, on through the video projectors that actually create the immmersive environments inside our dome.  When I was a student, I never imagined how much bizarre and arcane knowledge I would end up acquiring about such varied topics.  I thought I would spend all my time learning about astronomy!  Instead, my job demands a very different range of knowledge.  Which makes things interesting, I have to say.

I have learned a lot on this trip, and I hope to learn more that I can take back home.  Then, with that knowledge, perhaps we can experiment with new technologies and new relationships to bring unique experiences to the Morrison Planetarium.  A direct line to Hamburg, perhaps?  Or somewhere else on the globe?

Last night’s inaugural lecture in our 20th Anniversary Dean Lecture Series was a success… And definitely a bit overwhelming. We filled every seat in the new Morrison Planetarium and actually had to turn people away! That gives me mixed feelings: of course, I appreciate the positive response, but I also know that several long-time attendees could not attend.

The lecture itself went swimmingly. Alex Filippenko spoke about cosmology—a topic that always provokes strong interest and interesting queries. In fact, the audience greatly impressed me with the subtlety and intelligence of their questions at the end of Filippenko’s talk.

Over dinner, I also found out that Filippenko worked with my friend Ben Oppenheimer. (All right, I think I knew that, but I’d forgotten…) Astronomers may study big things, but they travel in small circles.

So, the first lecture in the new planetarium got things off to a good, if hectic start. We’ll see what the rest of the season holds… We have talks coming up on extraterrestrial life, Hubble images, and interplanetary impacts, among other things, and we’ll see if we can maintain the accelerating dark-energy momentum we achieved in our first talk.

For twenty years, the California Academy of Sciences has hosted the Benjamin Dean Lecture Series. Now, for our twentieth anniversary, we are returning to the newly-rebuilt Morrison Planetarium! Tonight’s the big night.

Alex Filippenko will give the inaugural lecture on “Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe,” and we’re working on a few visuals to enhance his talk. The new planetarium makes for a great lecture space, but it’s an even better immersive environment: I like to say that the new planetarium puts audiences inside the science. For tonight’s talk, we’re looking at three-dimensional data on galaxy locations and dark matter distribution… Dark energy itself is a tad tricky to visualize. But those challenges make the job interesting.

I have the great pleasure of attending the 213th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Long Beach, California. I’ve been here less than 24 hours, but I’ve had a chance to reconnect with friends and catch a little of the buzz around the conference.

My current institution, the newly-rebuilt California Academy of Sciences, hosts research in a wide variety of topics, mostly in the life sciences—but not in astronomy. Although I haven’t done research in a good long while, my former institution sported a Department of Astrophysics just one floor up from my office. I could just head upstairs to the weekly colloquium and keep abreast of the latest happenings in astronomical research. No such luck any more! So I look forward to the AAS meetings to get me up to speed.

I enjoy technology as much as (okay, maybe even a little more than) the next person, but truly, nothing can take the place of face-to-face communication. Conversations with colleagues and collaborators move things along much faster than email exchanges, and although each method of communication has its place, looking somebody in the eye, standing or sitting next to them, capturing the full spectrum of their voice and body language… There’s no substitute.

It only makes sense: humans have evolved to respond to every nuanced expression and inflection of tone, as extraordinarily socialized animals. And it ends up affecting every interaction we have, whether we’re discussing last night’s dinner or this morning’s talk on cosmology. So, as we get started on a few days of astronomy talks and ad hoc meetings, I’m looking forward to some good primate interactions.

Hmmm. I’m starting to sound like somebody who works at a life sciences institution.