Located on top of Monte Sano Mountain in Monte Sano State Park, the Von Braun Astronomical Society  Planetarium is used for a variety of public and special sky shows which are presented by both members and outside speakers.   With their strong interests in astronomy, VBAS members volunteer to do all the programs, activities, and  upkeep of the facilities.  Currently there are over 150 members in the society which is open to anyone who is interested in astronomy or observing the night sky.

The planetarium shows begin at 7:30 pm and if the weather permits, the show is followed by a star-gazing party using the telescopes in the observatory of VBAS.  Admission to shows is $2 for adults.
 

• Walking from the lookout point to the VBAS gate, about 50 yards, teachers will come across signs bearing the sun and the nine planets.  Teachers will be asked to observe the relative positions of the signs on the short walk from the entrance gate to the VBAS Planetarium and Observatory.  This activity is done just before it gets too dark.

• Inside the Planetarium, teachers will be asked to propose how the Polynesians and other South Seas navigators were able to use the night sky to find their way in the vast southern waters of the Pacific Ocean without using the North Star. A special show on how the South Seas were probably navigated using the Southern night sky's constellations has been developed and will be presented.  The teachers's proposed responses will be tested during the show.

• Polynesians navigated vast open oceans using only careful observation of nature.
• Polynesians followed birds' flightpaths or watched the ocean waves' patterns to navigate thousands of miles of ocean to remote islands throughtout the Pacific Ocean.  The natives of the Marshall Islands made  maps showing prevailing direction of the swells and positions of islands out of palm branches and mollusk shells.
• Travelling from Tahiti to Hawaii, a distance of several thousand miles, the Polynesians sailed northeast using the prevailing south-easterly wind.
• By day they used the sun's position and at night they determined their position by the stars.  They committed to memory at least  220 stars where they come up and where they go down.  They know that  at any one point on the celestial sphere, the sun and stars are found above the horizon at certain fixed positions at any one time in the year.   They measured their positions using primitive means, such as the length of one's fingers or other limbs.

• The Polynesians most likely used the Southern Cross as their main navigational guide. Two stars, Gacrux on top and Acrux on the bottom in the Southem Cross always point south.   If you are traveling south, these two stars are going to be moving higher and higher in the sky.  At the South Pole, these stars will appear to be overhead. If you are going north, the Southern Cross will move across the sky in a lower and lower arc each night. The distance between Gacrux and Acrux relative to the distance from Acrux to the horizon changes as you move northward.  At the latitude of Hawai'i, these distances are equal.  At the equator, the distance between Acrux and the horizon is about eight and a half times the distance between the top and bottom stars of the Southern Cross.

 

 
 




References:

University of Pennsylvania. "Living Seamarks" in Traditional Navigation in the Western Pacific. 1997. http://www.museum.upenn.edu/navigation/living/living.html;
University of Pennsylvania.  "Keeping Track" in Traditional Navigation in the Western Pacific.1997.
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Navigation/sailing/sailing.html
Lewis, David. We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific. 1994 Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press .


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