by Jill Postma

When you arrive at the Planetarium’s south entrance, we’ll check the weather. If it’s not cloudy, we’ll walk over to the Doane Observatory at the tip of the peninsula the museum sits on and look through a modern telescope at the sun with the astronomer on duty that day. If we’re lucky we’ll see sunspots.

After that, we’ll venture down into the depths of the museum and visit our underground Webster Institute for the Study of the History of Astronomy. One of our curators, Dr. Bruce Stephenson, will describe some of our favorite pieces from our collection of rare objects and books. Most of the rest of our staff will also be in attendance to answer questions and talk a little about what we get to do here.

Then, for a very different experience, we’ll go into the museum’s Space Visualization Laboratory and meet with Dr. Stuart Lynn, who will tell us about Zooniverse, our citizen science project. After playing on computers, you’ll be let loose to wander the rest of the museum, especially the “Telescopes : Through the Looking Glass” exhibit, which has our best rare telescopes and relevant rare texts (it’s my favorite exhibit because it has the most books in it!).

Lunch in the museum can be on your own. The cafe has the best view of the city at ground level.