More than Stars: How Culture Influences our Stories of the Night Sky

Name: More than Stars: How Culture Influences our Stories of the Night Sky
Start: 2025-01-24T20:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-01-24T21:30:00-05:00
Location: Towson State University

Schedule

Fri Jan 24 2025 at 08:00 pm to 09:30 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Towson State University | Towson, MD

We all look to the night sky. Our culture or location makes no difference: the night sky has always held intrigue for people whether it be for practical use like navigation or only sheer wonder. With this commonality, how do peoples’ stories differ regarding constellations, astronomical instruments, and scientific knowledge? An international collaboration, The One Sky Project, answered those questions with their film One Sky.
Please join us for a screening of this documentary to increase our understanding of cultural and Indigenous astronomy, its historical and modern applications, and how our One Sky connects us all, showing at Towson Planetarium.
One Sky is a collection of short films focusing on Indigenous cultures in Greece, India, Northern Canada, Japan, the Pacific Islands, and the Navajo people in the US. Each chapter is presented in an original style, featuring the work of international artists. Each film stands alone as a short story or in combination as a longer narrative.
Planetarium Director Christian Ready will moderate the screening and also lead us outside for a telescope observation after the show using their 16-inch diameter Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and other portable telescopes, if the weather permits. The Towson Planetarium is an all-digital system, newly built in 2021, and features a 24-foot diameter dome, 4K-by-4K ultra-high-definition image, and a quadrophonic sound system.