Virtual Planetarium Program

In addition to in-school programming, your students can experience the Planetarium virtually in your classroom!

The virtual planetarium presentation explores the geography, celestial navigation, and astronomical concepts that confronted those individuals on the first voyage of the whaleship Charles W. Morgan. The basis for this presentation is the primary source of the Morgan’s first log book.

Through use of digital planetarium software, students will be able to:

• Observe a geographic coordinate system and relate log book entries to find the latitude and longitude of an entry.
• Discuss how latitude and longitude are used to find a location and to navigate to a new position.
• Understand how celestial bodies (e.g., stars) are used to find direction.
• Discuss how star hopping was used to find important navigation stars and why constellations are important.
• Observe how celestial bodies in the sky appear at different dates, times and latitudes for the crew of the Charles W. Morgan.