by Jason Kleymann
Daily Lobo
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science's Lodestar Astronomy Center began its sixth annual Starry Nights astronomy tours Saturday.
The tours, which run every Saturday through February, give viewers a closer look at our solar system and galaxy through DigitalSky, a 55-foot high convex high-definition television screen dome.
Audience members can also observe the night sky through the center's telescopes and explore the many interactive activities and displays.
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Juliet Vescovi, a senior at UNM, took her 8-year-old brother Jeffrey to Saturday's tour.
"He's a big nerd like his sister," she said.
Tours begin every half hour starting at 6:30 p.m. The first four regular shows are narrated in English, with the final 8:30 show in Spanish.
Emmanuel Flores, a 24-year-old Computer Science major at UNM, has worked at the astronomy center through three years of the "Starry Nights" program, and narrates the Spanish tours.
"We had a lot of Spanish-speaking people coming in, and they didn't always understand all of the tour," Flores said.
Images from the Hubble Space Telescope, findings from the Mars rovers and a three-dimensional trip through our galaxy start the tour off in the Lodestar Theater. If weather obscures part of the night sky, an additional 20-minute video narrated by Laurence Fishburne titled "Infinity Express" is shown.
Vince Ascoli, the Lodestar floor manager and host for Saturday's opening night, said the center's floor staff is almost entirely UNM students with a wide range of majors, from astronomy to computer science and even performing arts.
"Lodestar encompasses a lot of disciplines. It's technology. It's presentation, and it's astronomy. It's not just stars. It's all of these things that we use to present this in an entertaining way," Ascoli said.
Amanda Alton, a senior at UNM, narrated the first show Saturday. She has worked at Lodestar for three years and described it as the perfect job for a student.
"You get to meet intelligent people and fellow students," she said. "What other job can you learn something new every day?"
Alton said UNM students frequent Lodestar.
"We do see a lot of college-aged people here," Alton said. "Once they discover it, I do see quite a few people return."
Ryan Dunn, a fourth grader from Double Eagle Elementary School, helped out by showing interested audience members how a reflecting telescope works. Walter Dunn, Ryan's father, said Ryan had always been interested in astronomy, and he saved money for a year and a half to buy his own reflective telescope.
"This has been a really good environment for him. He's gained a lot of knowledge from the staff and volunteers here at Starry Nights," Walter Dunn said.
Also on display at Lodestar is a life-sized replica of one of the Mars rovers, complete with an onboard moveable video camera guests could operate via joystick.
Mike Sepulveda, a 2004 UNM Astrophysics graduate, is the observatory director at Lodestar, and he has been working at the center for the last five years.
"I really can't complain about what I do," Sepulveda said. "Where else can you learn something every day and constantly teach and learn from your peers?"
Despite the cloud cover, most of the audience members could catch glimpses of the moon and Mars through the astronomy center's telescopes.
"I thought it was cool," Vescovi said after the show. "But I want to come again when it's not cloudy."
Tickets are $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $3 for children 3 through 12. UNM students with an ID receive a 25 percent discount.
