Media & Events
As an Astronomer and Night Sky Ambassador, I’ve partnered with nonprofits and businesses for over a decade that is doing good to help promote science and the environment. I’ve given lectures in our nation’s national parks advocating to turn them into the single largest source for public science and astronomy education. I regularly give astronomically themed lectures and appearances nationally.
Book me for engagements like;
Half the Park is After Dark, Night Sky Training for state and national park rangers.
Talks on astronomy, dark skies, and art & conservation.
Leading eclipse, northern lights, and astronomy-themed tours
Ongoing Engagements
Teaching
We live in a technological world, where in the future even those individuals who are not scientists, will need to understand science, what it is, and how it works. I’ve developed a series of popular classes designed to teach astronomy and scientific relevance to non-science students. Astronomy Abroad is the name I’ve given to this series of classes where I take a group of students to different locations around the world to understand the astronomy that takes place there. Recently, I traveled to Italy where students learn the science of Galileo by reading his works, building replicas of his telescope, and reproducing his observations all while traveling to the places important in his life. While doing so, they learn about the role of science in society & history and how it’s playing out in today’s modern world where once again modern discoveries have been turned into controversies on the cultural stage.
Transdisciplinary Programs
Summer 2010 - Special Guest Lecturer at Grand Tetons National Park
Night Sky and landscape photography: Earth Analogs to other Planets
Week of Art and Science
Center for Wonder & Art Association of Jackson Hole
Fall 2011 - Guest Instructor for Prescott College Grand Canyon Semester
Night Sky Awareness: Stars as Wilderness Experience
Two week Circumnavigation of Grand Canyon Eco-Region & 20 days Rafting Grand Canyon
Images credit: NASA/Cornell/JPL
Mars Space Dial
UPDATE: August 5, 2012. NASA's newest rover, Curiosity, has just touched down safely on Mars. Onboard is a sundial made out of the color camera calibration target. See an NBC LA news segment on my participation in its design.
In January 2004, NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars carrying two sundials. I was part of a team of seven astronomers and artists chosen by Dr. Steve Squyers, the Principle Investigator for the rovers, to turn the color calibration targets into sundials. What’s a color calibration target? Here on Earth we know that trees should be green and the sky should be blue, and we can adjust our images’ colors accordingly to bring out these true colors. But there are now color cues on Mars unless we bring them ourselves. Sitting on each rover is a target with red, green, blue, and yellow tabs as well as a post to cast shadows so that we can see these colors in direct and indirect lighting. According to team member Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” that is just a sundial. Under the direction of world-famous artist, Jon Lomberg, who worked on Carl Sagan’s Cosmos TV series as well as the NASA Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft plaques, the Mars rover targets are working sundials bearing the name “Mars” in 16 languages from all over the world and the slogan (a common feature of all sundials), “Two Worlds, One Sun.” These Marsdials are now the most photographed objects on the surface of Mars. In 2011, a third Marsdial was launched to Mars onboard NASA’s newest rover, Curiosity. This third dial, continuing the tradition of the previous two, carries the slogan that speaks to anyone who has ever wondered what’s over the horizon or on other worlds: “To Mars, to Explore.”
National Park Half the Park is After Dark(TM) Initiative
The National Park Service Night-Sky Team is a group of National Park Service Rangers and astronomers working to protect and preserve the views of naturally dark starry skies above America's National Parks. I have been a member of this special team since encountering their work at an evening ranger program in Yosemite National Park in 2005.
In 2007, I spent 12 months traveling through 12 national parks, where I spoke to park visitors and rangers about the astronomical wanders on display every day and night in the national parks. By night, park visitors have an unparalleled view of the stars beyond thanks to the efforts of park rangers to preserve and protect the natural landscape. But by day, that same landscape is often an excellent example of geological formations and processes at work on other worlds.
Today, I help train park rangers to give night sky programs as part of the National Park Service Night Sky Academy. I also offer my services to produce educational audio and video recordings in astronomy for educational and entertainment purposes showcasing my trademarked phrase “Half the park is after dark.”
Since 2010, Half the Park is after dark has been the hallmark of my series of 1930s WPA-style posters advertising the national park service’s dark-sky programming and other astronomy-related events at parks all across the country.
Connecting dark skies to solar eclipses that have crossed our nation’s national parks since 2012, I have also trademarked the phrase Go for the Sun, Stay for the Stars. I offer my services producing educational audio and video recordings in astronomy for educational and entertainment purposes and presenting workshops and training in the field of astronomy for state and national park rangers and astronomy educators; and astronomy festivals in state and national parks and other outdoor venues for both this and Half the Park is After Dark.
Guest Artist in Residence
In 2008, I was honored as one of Glacier National Park’s Artists-In-Residence for my work capturing the night sky above the iconic alpine vistas of this spectacular park. For four weeks, I sought out the views that millions of visitors every year see by day, but few stop to experience by night. Thanks to Glacier’s remote location in northern Montana, the sky above the park is particularly dark, especially from the Logan Pass Visitor Center along the Continental Divide. During one memorable night, I photographed the park along the famous Going to the Sun Road from the eastern entrance to Logan Pass capturing the distant Milky Way shining brightly against the snow-capped Glaciers still on display. Today, Logan Pass is the scene of a growing annual Star Party that shares the spectacular beauty that I helped to capture and popularize within the park.