Morrison Planetarium

About the Dome The Morrison Planetarium is the largest all-digital dome in the world with a 75-foot diameter projection screen tilted at a 30 degree angle. Thanks to immersive video technology, the dome seems to disappear when imagery is projected onto it, creating an experience more like flying than watching a movie. The planetarium relies on scientific data to depict current discoveries with unprecedented accuracy. It also has the flexibility to present a wide variety of programming that is both educational and entertaining. Traditional star shows will be supplemented by live “tours of the Universe,” and programming will include live NASA feeds as well as broadcasts from Academy scientists in the field.

Planetarium Shows EARTHQUAKE: EVIDENCE OF A RESTLESS PLANET A sweeping geological journey, Earthquake explores the forces that transform the surface of our planet. After a stunning flight over the San Andreas Fault, audiences travel back in time to experience San Francisco’s infamous 1906 earthquake. Data-driven visualizations illustrate Earth’s story, revealing how subtle motions and sudden ruptures have shaped our planet over eons—and how geological activity influences the course of human history. Finally, see how scientists and engineers help society prepare for a safer future. View showtimes Credits [4kb] Educator Guide (6-12) [PDF]

COSMIC COLLISIONS Creative and destructive, dynamic and dazzling, collisions are a key mechanism in the evolution of the Universe. Celestial smash-ups have changed the course of life on Earth and are responsible for many things we take for granted—the Sun’s heat and light, the tides, and our changing seasons. Narrated by Robert Redford, this immersive planetarium experience explores the full range of collisions, from subatomic particles to the largest galaxies. Travel to the past, present, and future to witness the creation of our Moon, the meteorite impact that ended the Age of Dinosaurs, and the titanic merging of our galaxy with another system billions of years from now. Discover how these explosive encounters have shaped our planet and continue to transform the cosmos. Cosmic Collisions was developed by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science; GOTO, Inc., Tokyo, Japan; and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, China. The show was created with the major support and partnership of NASA, Science Missions Directorate, Heliophysics Division. View showtimes

Watch the Earthquake Trailer Learn more about the exhibit »

Skywatcher’s Guide (October–December 2013)

October 3

Uranus at opposition against the stars of Pisces the Fishes, opposite the Sun in the sky, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise. This is when the distant planet is closest to Earth and therefore visually largest and brightest, shining at just the limit of naked-eye visibility. See Notes for more about the seventh planet.

October 4

New Moon at 7:00 p.m. PDT/10:00 p.m. EDT. Some calendars, using Universal or Greenwich Time list this as occurring at 12:33 a.m. on the 5th. Sighting of the first crescent after this new Moon marks the start of Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the year in the Moon-based Islamic calendar, and is possible after sunset on the 6th.

October 11

First quarter Moon against the stars of Sagittarius the Archer. A quarter Moon is less than 1/10 as bright as a Full Moon.

October 18

Full Moon in Pisces the Fishes. October’s Full Moon is the first after the Harvest Moon of September, so it’s also known traditionally as the Hunter’s Moon. Other names given to October’s Full Moon by Native Americans include the “Blackberry Moon” (Choctaw), the “Moon When Water Begins to Freeze on the Edge of the Stream” (Cheyenne), and “Falling Leaves Time” (Nez Perce).
The Full Moon passes through the faintest part of Earth’s shadow, causing a penumbral lunar eclipse that’s barely noticeable. See Notes for details.

October 20

Peak of the annual Orionid meteor shower, caused by dust particles along the trail of Halley’s Comet burning up in the atmosphere as Earth sweeps through the comet’s path. A medium-strength display that typically produces about 30 meteors per hour, this shower unfortunately coincides with a waning gibbous Moon (just past full) whose light will obscure many meteors from view.

October 26

Last quarter Moon occurs at 4:41 p.m. PDT/7:41 p.m. EDT, but doesn’t rise until a little after midnight tonight (so technically on the 27th) against the stars of Cancer the Crab.

November 3

Standard time resumes at 2:00 a.m. Most of the U.S. “falls back” as clocks are adjusted back one hour so that they more accurately reflect solar time—at solar noon, the Sun is highest in the sky when the clock is closer to noon than to 1:00 p.m., as it is during Daylight Time.

November 3

New Moon. Sighting of the first crescent after New, possible after sunset on the 4th, marks the start of the month Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, and the start of a new year which migrates back 11 days each year. This is because a lunar year of twelve lunar phase cycles is 354 days long, as opposed to the 365-day solar year.
A hybrid (annular-total) solar eclipse occurs, visible across the Atlantic Ocean and into Central Africa. See Notes for details.

November 9

First quarter Moon at 9:58 p.m. PST, or on November 10 at 12:58 a.m. EST and time zones east of the Atlantic.

November 17

Full Moon in Taurus the Bull, not far from the Pleiades star cluster. Traditional Native American names given to the Full Moon of November include the “Freezing Moon” (Cheyenne), the “Beaver Moon” (Algonquin), and the “Bison Moon” (Natchez).
Peak of the Leonid meteor shower, usually averaging about 15 meteors per hour, but known for storm-level displays every 33 years, the last time in 1998. Unfortunately, this year’s peak coincides with a Full Moon whose bright light will obliterate all but the brightest meteors from view, radiating from the vicinity of the constellation Leo the Lion.

November 25

Last quarter Moon occurs just before noon but doesn’t rise until about 12 hours later, just after midnight against the stars of Sextans the Sextant, just south of Leo the Lion.

November 28

Sun-grazing ISON at perihelion. This is when the comet is closest to the Sun and could be torn apart by its gravity, depending on the comet’s composition. It could also be at its brightest and most spectacular—but exactly how bright? See Notes.

December 2

New Moon at 4:21 p.m. PST/7:21 p.m. EST. Calendars based on Universal or Greenwich Time list this at 12:21 a.m. on the 3rd. Sighting of the first crescent after New marks the start of Safar, the second month of the Islamic calendar—this is possible across most of the U.S. just after sunset on the 3rd.

December 9

First quarter Moon rises about noon, visible in the south at sunset and remaining visible until about midnight against the stars of Pisces the Fishes.

December 13

Peak of the annual Geminid meteor shower, the most reliable shower of the year, producing up to 80 meteors per hour, but coinciding with a waxing gibbous, this shower will be difficult to appreciate in the bright moonlight.

December 17

Full Moon occurs at 1:28 a.m. PST/4:28 a.m. EST, rising in the east-northeast at sunset. Also known to the Choctaw as the “Big Freezing Moon,” to the Micmac as the “Chief Moon”, and to the Osage as the “Baby Bear Moon.”

December 21

Winter solstice (start of Winter in the Northern Hemisphere) at 9:11 a.m. PST/12:11 p.m. EST. This is the day the Sun rises and sets farthest south and has its lowest, shortest arc across the sky. In the Southern Hemisphere, where seasons are reversed, this is the Summer solstice.

December 25

Last quarter Moon at 5:49 a.m. PST/8:49 a.m. EST, located against the stars of Virgo the Maiden and due south at dawn, remaining visible in the sky until it sets at about noon.

December 26

Comet ISON closest to Earth, 40 million miles away, provided it survived its Thanksgiving Day closest approach to the Sun.

Mercury The nearest world to the Sun makes a brief appearance in October’s early evening sky, though the plane of the solar system is at such a shallow angle with respect to the horizon that even at its greatest separation of 28 degrees, Mercury sets very soon after the Sun and is difficult to see in the glow of twilight—if it weren’t, its triple conjunction with Saturn, taking place from October through November, would be visible (see Notes). In conjunction with the Sun on November 1, the little planet is lost in the Sun’s glare from mid-October through about mid-November, when it emerges into the predawn sky. Don’t miss its close pass a half-degree near Saturn on the morning of November 26! The Moon passes Mercury on the evening of October 6, but very close to the Sun (look very low in the southwest about a half-hour to 45 minutes after sunset). Its pass on November 2 is washed from view by the Sun, but its morning pass on December 1 should be visible (and impressive, with Saturn nearby).

Venus The so-called “cloudy planet” is a bright beacon in the evening sky, though low and hence not visible for very long, but unmistakable due to its brilliance as it slowly progresses from the stars of Libra into those of Sagittarius. Even experienced pilots and flight controllers are said to have misidentified it as an incoming aircraft, and on the politically-sensitive India-Pakistan border, Venus was recently blamed for false reports of military drone incursions. The crescent Moon passes by on the evenings of October 7 & 8, November 6, and December 5.

Mars The red planet is a predawn object, gradually climbing higher in to the sky each morning, though not quite keeping up with the westward movement of the sky and slowly traversing from Leo the Lion into Virgo the Maiden. The Moon makes a compact triangle with Mars and the star Regulus (the heart of Leo) on the mornings of October 1 and October 29, and as Mars distances itself from Regulus, the Moon passes about 5 degrees from the red planet again on the mornings of November 27 and December 25.

Jupiter Lumbering slowly against the stars of Gemini the Twins, Jupiter rises in the east at about midnight in early October, around 10:30 p.m. on November 1, and a little before 8 p.m. at the beginning of December. The Moon passes the giant planet, making for some nice pairings on the evenings of October 25 & 26, November 21, and December 18.

Saturn As October begins, Saturn is so low in the west-southwest after sunset that its image is distorted and obscured by haze along the horizon, and it sets soon after the Sun. The ringed planet is hidden from view by the Sun’s glare from about 3 weeks before to about 3 after conjunction, which occurs on November 6, when Saturn crosses from the evening to the morning sky. Saturn and Mercury have a very close encounter on the morning of November 26. The waxing crescent Moon swings by the evening of October 6, but its November 3 pass it too close to the Sun and washed from view. After Saturn enters the predawn sky, the waning crescent Moon passes by on the mornings of December 1 & 28.

	Sunrise	Local Noon	Sunset
October 1	7:06 a.m. PDT	12:59 p.m. PDT	6:52 p.m. PDT
November 1	7:35 a.m. PDT	12:53 p.m. PDT	6:11 p.m. PDT
December 1	7:07 a.m. PST	11:59 a.m. PST	4:51 p.m. PST

(Times are for San Francisco, CA, and will vary slightly for other locations.)

Fall Notes

On October 3, Uranus is at opposition. Not usually regarded as a naked-eye planet, Uranus is visible through telescopes as a tiny, pale-green disk. Discovered in 1781 by Sir William Herschel, this planet—4 times Earth’s diameter—was the first to be discovered telescopically. Initially, however, it was mistaken for a comet. After its true nature was determined, Uranus was almost named “George’s Star,” after King George III of England, but popular sentiment outside of Britain was against doing so in favor of a more traditional name derived from Greek mythology. Circled by 27 known moons and a system of rings much fainter than Saturn’s, Uranus has the distinction of having an axial tilt 98 degrees from the vertical, thus orbiting the Sun “rolling like a bowling ball” rather than “spinning like a top” the way the other planets do. Like even more distant Neptune, Uranus has been visited by only one spacecraft—NASA’s Voyager 2.

Planets Gone Loopy: If not for the Sun, Mercury would be observed to pass Saturn three times this season, first it on October 8 moving eastward, then reversing its motion and backing up, passing Saturn again on October 30, both encounters positioned low in the southwest just after sunset and unfortunately washed from view by the Sun’s glare. Resuming its normal motion, Mercury passes Saturn for a third time on November 26, when both planets have separated far enough from the Sun to be visible in the early morning sky, rising slightly more than an hour before dawn. Such a series of passes, resulting from one planet making a “retrograde loop” in the vicinity of a slower-moving, more distant planet, is referred to as a “triple conjunction.”

On October 18, a penumbral lunar eclipse occurs, not easily detectable except in photography, as the Full Moon passes through the barely-noticeable outer portion of Earth’s shadow. Centered over Western Africa, the eclipse is in progress at moonrise for U.S. locations and nearly over for the West Coast. Observers on the East Coast may notice a subtle shading across the Moon’s southern hemisphere soon after moonrise.

Do we actually stop “saving daylight” on November 3, when the U.S. returns to Standard Time? What IS “Daylight Saving Time,” anyway? Contrary to popular myth, it wasn’t invented by Benjamin Franklin, who famously said “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” and who invented other things like bifocals, lightning rods, the Franklin stove, and who tried to electrocute a turkey for dinner but accidentally shocked himself senseless instead (he survived, although the ultimate fate of the reprieved turkey is unknown)...but that’s a story for another time. Modern Daylight Saving Time was conceived as a 2-hour time-shift by New Zealander George Vernon Hudson in 1895. The idea was to shift clock-time so that evening activities could take place during the extra daylight hours of the summer months, and an early justification was that it supposedly saved energy by requiring less use of coal, and, eventually, electricity. The idea was independently conceived and championed in 1905 by Englishman William Willett, who observed that many people tended to sleep late during the Summer months, wasting the morning daylight, also realizing that shifting the clock allowed him to continue playing his favorite game of golf later into the evening. The idea wasn’t actually put into practice until 1916 in Germany to help alleviate coal shortages during World War I. But does shifting the clock so that more daylight hours occur at the end of the day really save energy? What might be saved at the sunlit end of the day may be used in the mornings, when people who rise during the darker morning hours would need artificial lighting, so do the two balance each other out? There are numerous other arguments supporting each side of the debate, with farmers, retailers, the entertainment industry, sporting goods manufacturers, energy commissions, and tourism bureaus weighing in, all armed with data, studies, and statistics to support them, and today, the heated controversy over whether Daylight Saving is necessary continues.

On November 3, a hybrid, or annular-total, solar eclipse occurs as the New Moon moves between Earth and the Sun, casting its shadow across the Atlantic Ocean and into Central Africa. It’s called a “hybrid” eclipse because where the Moon’s shadow first touches Earth’s surface in the Western Atlantic, our planet’s curvature causes the point of contact to be slightly farther away from the Moon, and as a result, the Moon’s ever-so-slightly smaller silhouette doesn’t quite cover the Sun’s disk. For a brief several seconds at the start (the westernmost end) of the shadow-path, the outermost edge of the Sun’s disk is visible around the Moon as an annular eclipse. As the shadow moves eastward, the curvature of Earth quickly shortens the Earth-Moon distance enough so that the Moon can completely obscure the solar disk, causing a total eclipse along the rest of the shadow-path.

Discovered a year ago, in September 2012, Comet C/2012 S1 ISON reaches perihelion on November 28, passing an astronomically-scant 680,000 miles from the Sun’s surface and thus qualifying as a “Sun-grazing” comet. This could be good...or bad: passing so close to the Sun could cause the comet to brighten significantly as its ice sublimates into a gaseous, fluorescent coma, releasing reflective particles of dust into its tail—some early and perhaps overly-optimistic prognostications suggested it could become as bright as a full Moon! However, being so close to the Sun, it would be washed from view at the same time by the Sun’s glare and not easily visible until some days afterward, when its separation from the Sun has increased. On the other hand, comets are commonly described as “dirty snowballs,” and if ISON is particularly fragile, the Sun’s gravity could pull it apart as it passes near. At any rate, the final visual brightness of a comet cannot be predicted, so we’ll just have to wait and see what the comet itself wants to do. After having been hidden in the Sun’s glare since June, the comet was recovered visually in August, but it appeared fainter than brightness forecasts said it should be. Interestingly, the comet will be closest to Earth (40 million miles) on December 26, and on January 14, Earth will pass near the inward-bound portion of the comet’s orbit, which may be littered with debris released by the comet, and some astronomers wonder if this may give birth to a new “ISONid” meteor shower.

A newly-discovered comet, C/2013 R1 Lovejoy, will be in the same part of the sky as Comet ISON in November. Although it’s not expected to reach naked-eye visibility, it was discovered photographically by Australian observer Terry Lovejoy (his fourth discovery) using a relatively-small 8-inch telescope, so it should be observable at perihelion through similar instruments, if not binoculars. This and the much-anticipated ISON will join frequent visitor Comet Encke in the predawn sky on November 9, forming a diagonal line of objects stretching from low southeast to high south, with Encke and ISON in Virgo the Maiden and Lovejoy in Cancer the Crab (ISON in the middle), topped off by Jupiter in Gemini. Comet Lovejoy will pass closest to Earth (38 million miles) on November 23 and closest to the Sun (81 million miles) on December 25.

Wait—“Comet Encke,” too? Yes! Comet 2/P Encke, discovered in 1786 but not recognized as a periodic comet until 1819, has the shortest-known period of any comet, returning to the inner solar system every 3.3 years. Despite having made as many trips through the neighborhood as it has (this being its 62nd recorded appearance), it still has enough volatiles to form a characteristic coma and tail when it nears the Sun, and though it is not expected to be a naked-eye object, it should be visible in large binoculars. Encke is thought to be the parent body of the Northern and Southern Taurid showers, two branches of a long-lasting display (the Taurid Complex) which is active from late-September through November and which is weak (5 meteors/hour) but known to produce bright fireballs (so bright in 2005 that they were dubbed the “Halloween fireballs”). Encke is also suspected by some astronomers to have been the parent body of the asteroid that exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908. The comet itself will be nearest Earth on October 17, joining with fellow comets ISON and Lovejoy in forming a parade of comets in the predawn sky in early November, and brightening just before it reaches its November 21 perihelion.