Comments and anecdotes about the event:
Portable Planetarium Presentations at the Wichita Library: From October 24 through October 26, Chris Ketron, Brent Neas, and I presented a total of 19 planetarium shows at the Wichita Advanced Learning Library using Fort Hays State University's portable planetarium. Audiences were enthusiastic and asked lots of questions as we taught them how to recognize key fall constellations and took them on a guided tour of several planets in our solar system. I led the morning and early-afternoon shows, and Chris took over for the final shows of the day. Brent provided important assistance with crowd control and other logistics. A power outage at the library forced cancellation of a few of the Tuesday shows, but many of those guests re-scheduled for Wednesday and we were able to fit them in. Almost as popular as the planetarium shows was the craft Chris brought: children and adults alike enjoyed making their own constellation models out of black pipe cleaners and glow-in-the-dark beads. It was fun to see some of the more ambitious kids take on very elaborate constellation designs. Over the course of the three days, we presented shows to a total of 311 guests. Many of the shows were sold out, and the library has already expressed interest in having us return next year. Thanks to Jerelyn Ramirez for lining this up, to Chris and Brent for their good work, and to Sarah Kittrell at the library for being in charge of registering guests for the shows. -Submitted by Ron Mallory