The Don Rosen Show (Hour 2)

We can't hold the cup, people get in the car.

Where is the cup holder in this car?

This is insane.

Get some wheels on the luggage.

Get me a bell clip for my cell phone.

Get me an earpiece, too, and not one that you're taking it out,

drill right into the side of my skull.

You have a dog, and they give you a leash,

with an extra leash wound up inside the case the dog pulls it.

You hit the button, let the line out like he's a Marlin.

Nobody wants to do anything but lie in bed.

Anything if you're not in bed, it's work.

Even death, even death, people want to be in bed.

I always read, he died in his death bed.

I always read that in the paper.

Why would you even buy a bed like that?

How are you going to start feeling better,

sleeping in a death bed?

Where is that section of the furniture store?

These are our death beds over here.

We also have a death side table, death reading lamp.

Is that a death clock radio?

Yes, but there's no snooze either.

You get up or you don't.

Oh, even you open all you want now.

It's empty.

I'm having my sleep.

Sit true to the dinner.

Do not cook, eat.

Hey, come on.

Come on, come on, come my way.

I can live a dog, live in the wall.

You can take me to the salon.

Happy Earth Day everybody.

I got a text message a few minutes ago.

This is a real type mower.

Okay.

For no mower.

This is no mower coming up where they don't want you to mow your backyard.

Because the honey bees, you know, they need the bees.

They need to go and pollinate something when something mowing your lawn so fast.

They have nowhere to go.

Yeah, I guess so.

Doesn't suck up nests in the ground.

I think you're talking about a push mower.

My wife said to me, why don't we get a push mower?

That's spoken like somebody who doesn't mow the lawn.

I said, you know, well, I got a mower now.

It's nice and powerful.

I just kind of touch it and it goes.

It goes, yeah, but a push mower would be better.

I said, how is that push mower better?

It doesn't sound better to me.

But anyway, that's what she was talking about.

So it might be.

It might be better.

We got another person asking is the 60 second district open or is cruise running against incumbent.

I don't, I don't know.

We'll have to ask somebody a little smarter than me for that.

If you do have a text question for us, you can do that for our guests coming up in just a moment here.

The number to call its number to text is 262-300-7445.

That's 262-300-7445.

I wish it spelled a nice word.

Everybody just give it out the word, but I can't.

Doesn't spell anything.

I tried 262-300-7445.

If you have a question for our guests and it's Aaron Lawler is here.

And we also have Lee Whitener.

Are you related to the Whitener in politics here in town?

No.

Okay.

I'm going to open your microphone so you can talk to us.

You're not related.

No, not related.

That's your work.

That's your name.

You can answer that question then.

Okay.

You guys are from the Racine Astronomical Society, RAS.

And you can check out their website, RASastro.org.

Now, you guys hold your meetings at the Modine Benz that Observatory.

Correct.

Now, who owns that thing?

Hold.

Now, who owns it?

It's board ran.

So, we're members of the board.

And essentially, it's not owned by any individual.

It's board ran and club ran.

So, who does the upkeep on it?

You guys?

A group of volunteers.

Yeah.

We're 100% volunteer run.

So, we don't have any paid staff.

And basically, everything gets done by our volunteers.

Who give their time and sometimes their money to make sure that everything keeps going.

Well, that's good.

And I've been there before.

I went to one of your nights.

And it was beautiful.

It was a beautiful night.

You got hands.

It's such a shame when you have a public night and it's cloudy outside.

You guys should know the weather forecast a year in advance when you set these hands.

It's possible.

You can't know it within 24 hours.

I think it's very mean of you to schedule something a year in advance.

I'm not knowing if it's cloudy.

But we were there that night.

And it was a beautiful night.

Hundreds of people on the grounds, families.

Now, they have the two big observatory telescopes.

But there are many ones on the ground.

Some club members just bring their own telescopes.

Correct.

So, while you're waiting to use the big ones, and the lines move really fast, by the way.

You can, and they have it aimed at whatever we're looking at.

The night I was there, it was the moon.

And I couldn't believe how you can see all the details of the moon.

I've never noticed them before.

You know, you look up at the sky, you see a white ball.

Maybe you can see some, you know, stuff on it.

But I was able to see the craters almost in 3D.

Craters inside of craters.

Yeah.

Almost in 3D.

Now, I didn't want to give up my, you know, I want to look for a couple of hours.

And there's a line of people, you know, looking at their watches and, you know,

come on, you've been there 45 minutes already.

But no, I actually moved faster than that.

But that's really good.

Give us a little history of your club.

So it was established in 1956 in a backyard on 900 villa.

There was only a couple of members.

And they came with the idea of eventually, you know,

being able to build a telescope large enough to show the public at the time.

It was just neighborhood kids coming over and getting dilly bars.

And eventually my, well, my grandpa was one of the founding members.

And he was working for Modena at the time.

And he went for no talking to Mr. Modena.

He was in the drafting room, designing a telescope.

And he went up to Mr. Modena and said, hey, I have an idea.

Would you be interested?

To the Mr. Modena himself?

All right, there be Modena.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So he said, Mr. Modena said, oh, I have another friend that is an investor.

And let's talk to him.

And that was Mr. Ben Stead.

At the time, he was in charge of golden books.

Which, if you know golden books, that's Disney.

This is Modena manufacturing.

This is the Modena.

And this is Ben Stead from the golden books.

Correct.

So they invested in it.

And they bought the land for $2,000 because that's what the farmer on that own,

the land needed for a new tractor.

So they bought the land.

And then Nelson, our Nelson construction came and did the building.

And then for building the telescope,

everything was manufactured by local manufacturers such as TwinDisk for the Gears.

And it was a group of electrical engineers and mechanical engineers.

And they all designed everything.

And they placed that giant telescope that's about $3,000 with the mount and telescope

onto this single largest pure pore.

Or it was a single largest concrete pore in the state at the time.

It goes about six feet into the ground.

And that's massive telescope, about $3,000.

Now there are two of them there.

Yes.

So there's a smaller dome and a bigger dome.

Correct.

Observatory.

So which one were you talking about the bigger one now?

Yeah, the bigger one.

The smaller one is a mead.

It's a 14 inch mead.

That one is made by the company that is mead.

That's a different company.

The one that's in the main building,

that one was manufactured all by local people and made by local people with their hands.

So we went out there with our binoculars anyway just to say,

these are binoculars.

But when I went into the observatory,

it's nothing like we just see through binoculars.

Binoculars are nice, but it's hard to hold them steady.

Yeah.

Because your hand just moves and they get them so zoomed in.

They have stands for those now.

Yeah.

I don't know about that.

Right.

Yes.

I'm a newbie of this stuff.

I'll tell you what we got started with this.

We'll have a friend of mine who I used to work with in radio.

And she follows the starling stuff.

All those satellites are going to spacers.

You always posted, go out tonight at 902,

not 903, not 901.

You're at 902.

And you'll be able to see the satellites starlings going across the sky.

And I went out there one night,

and I saw that this was amazing.

Starlings, the satellites were going, I saw them moving.

It looked like a white streak going across the sky.

Then she said, on this night,

you'll be able to hear the space station.

And I went outside and I heard,

you hear the buzzing of the space and you can see it.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I actually heard the space station going overhead.

And so we got involved in that.

And then my wife found out there was a public night at the observatory

and we went out there.

But before that, we found out there's the parade of planets.

And I think that was, it was last year.

I can't remember when it was.

It was about two years ago.

They had a parade of planets.

Well, they had one last year.

Yeah.

Last year, the parade of planets,

where you can see not all of them at one time,

but because someone on the horizon when it's still sunny.

You really can't see all of them either.

Mercury wouldn't be.

No, no, no.

Yeah, they said it was on the horizon,

but you couldn't see it because the sun was still up.

So we wanted to get away from the area where the lights are.

First, we pulled into the Racine Theatre Guild parking lot.

Okay.

But there were too many trees blocking stuff.

We didn't count on that.

So then we went out a little further.

And we said, ah, too many lights.

So we went out to the county,

about three blocks from the observatory.

We passed it.

We said, well, we can't go there.

Let's go to someone else's property.

And we pulled down this street.

And I pulled on to a driveway of somebody's house.

And I said, I'm going to go knock on there.

Tell them we're into the driveway.

Because we couldn't park on the road.

It was too thin a road.

And there might be a car coming by.

But it was beautiful because there was no lights on the horizon.

It was all farm field.

There were no lights.

So I knocked on there during they weren't home.

And I said, ah, and I saw a camera.

And I kind of spoke to the cameras.

We're here just using your driveway to watch.

And they weren't there, obviously.

So we parked in their driveway and we saw the planets.

And my wife has this thing on her phone

where if you aim it toward the sky,

it will tell you what you're looking at.

So we used that.

But it was just before.

But just before sunset.

And we couldn't see the planets on the horizon.

Because there's still.

But just to see them up there and know what you were looking at.

Mars and wherever the planets were looking at that day.

That was really amazing.

And it got me interested.

And then we went to the observatory after that.

And we said, let's take a look at the stuff we're close.

Now we saw the moon.

But you guys look at the planets also, right?

Yep.

So how do we know we're going to see that night?

Are you going to aim it toward a planet?

Or the moon, do you know?

Well, it varies.

Because all the members on the lawn

get to decide what they point their telescope at.

So sometimes we'll look at planets.

And sometimes it might be the moon.

And it might change throughout the entire night

because things rise and set throughout the night.

How we decide what the big telescope looks at?

I don't know, Aaron, you run the big telescope often.

It depends on what's out there.

I mean, so like if you have a new moon,

which is like a moonless night,

then it'd be good opportunity to look at some deep sky.

And a lot of, I mean, one of the great things

it'll get through that telescope would be star clusters.

And it just looks like a blast of trillions of stars.

When you look at a planet or a star cluster,

can you actually set a single white line going across the sky?

You actually get to see.

You see a burst of stars for a star cluster.

But for like a deep sky object, like a galaxy or nebula,

it's white light because the cones in our eyes

can't actually decipher the color.

War coming up at just a moment with Aaron Lawler and Lee Widener

there from Garcia Astronomical Society,

R-A-S Astro.org.

It's 719-W-R-J-N, home-town radio refresh, too.

A tree till the sky becomes a blanket of stars.

What a day for picking daisy,

and lots of red balloons,

and what a day for holding hands,

I'll be with you.

It's 721 at W-R-J-N radio,

increasing climbing days today with 165.

Looks like cloudy sky tonight.

Maybe a chance of showers,

lows around 50 tomorrow,

partly sunny chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Eyes on your 67, 42 and sunny, beautiful morning.

721 at W-R-J-N on our guests, Aaron Lawler,

and Lee Widener from the Racine Astronomical Society.

And they're in charge of that giant observatory telescope

you see there in Yorkville,

the Modine Bend State Observatory.

And there's a public night coming up

where you can actually go out there,

park your car free of charge,

roam the grounds,

and see what's above us in the sky.

It's hopefully a clear night.

When is the public night coming up, by the way?

On Friday.

From 8 to 11.

Well, that's good.

And bring the kids with you.

They're going to love this.

And there's,

well, we got a whole bunch of things on your calendar here.

Spring Astronomy Day is Saturday, May 18th.

What's that all about?

That's just the National Astronomical League.

It's when they make their,

it's kind of like a calendar they have.

We tend to follow it to some extent

to our open nights as well.

What's Friday, June 14th from 8 30 to 11?

That's just another open night.

Oh, it's it. You get two open nights in a row there.

That's nice in June.

June 14th, which happens to be flag day as well.

Solar observing day.

Saturday, June 29th from 1 to 4 p.m.

That's where you get to look at the sun without getting spots in your eyes.

How does that happen?

Solar filters.

Yeah, how'd you guys do on that?

Did you guys have a big thing on the eclipse day out there?

Actually, we did not have any events for the eclipse

because for astronomers,

really totality is where you want to be.

And since totality was not here,

a lot of our members were traveling.

I went to Arkansas.

Did you really?

Yeah, okay.

I know a bunch of people went to Indiana to see it.

And here in New Texas.

Yeah, there's three of the board members down there in Texas at the same spot.

Yeah, and the reason for that is because until you hit that 100% totality,

you can't look at it naked eye.

Right.

Being able to see the eclipse naked eye is just a game changer.

You don't have to wear the glasses.

You don't have to see anything.

And you can see the details of the corona.

Yeah.

And that is awe-inspiring.

I think the first eclipse that I went to go and see,

the thing that blew me away the most was how big in the sky the sun actually is.

Like, you can see the moon, but it seems small.

And when you realize they're the same size and you see how large that eclipse looks in the sky,

it really is.

Respectively the same size.

Yeah.

I'm going to get back to the eclipse in a second because if I don't tell you this,

I'll fall out of my head.

Sometimes over the lake, I'll see the moon and it looks huge.

And I talked to our meteorologist one day, so that's an optical illusion.

Well, I know it's an optical illusion.

It didn't grow.

But why does it look so big?

Because your eyes have something to compare it to.

Right.

Really?

Is that why it doesn't?

It's an illusion, obviously.

It's an illusion because your eyes have things to compare it to.

So here's a trick you can do if you hold your hand out at arm's length.

And when the moon looks really large, just put your thumb up like in your visual field with the moon.

And then later on when the moon looks small, move your arm up and look at it and you will see that relative to the size of your thumb,

it's exactly the same size.

Look at this when I'm learning today.

Yeah, good.

I live right near the lake.

Okay.

I see that a lot where I'm driving by and I said, look at the size of that thing.

There must be something with the atmosphere.

And it's not the atmosphere.

It's just now I can look into compared to the way.

It's because, yeah, well, not even that.

I mean, anything that's at ground level, you're looking at it in comparison to that and you're saying, wow, that is massive.

But in reality, it does not take up any more real estate when it's low on the horizon to when it's in the center of the sky.

I didn't think when you guys came in this morning I'd learn a thing.

Oh, wow.

Thank you.

Now I have, I thought I knew everything.

Now I have knowledge I can bring back home to my wife and say, let me tell you what I found out.

Tell me a thumb up here.

Now with the eclipse, I went out in my next door neighbor happened to have the glasses because I tried every place of the last second.

They were selling them at the, what gas station is that?

The speedways.

They were all out.

I tried every speedway.

And I took it out.

First, I thought I can do with my sunglasses and you can't do anything.

And I saw the partial eclipse and I'm sitting there with, you know, like with my mouth opened up,

like I'm some kind of, you know, I got a mental patient and my mouth opened up staring up at the sky.

And then my other neighbor came out to, can I say?

And she was out there with a mouth opened up too.

It was just, it was an amazing, even a partial.

You got to see it.

But I saw on ABC they were running the eclipse all across the country.

And David Moore was out in, I think it was in Burlington, Vermont.

He was up there.

And you saw it and then he took off his glasses and he was looking at it.

And he was looking at it.

And they mentioned something about the beads.

Yes, Bailey's beads.

Bailey's beads.

I wasn't quite sure if that is the ring around it or they were little dots.

So what they are is light diffracted through the features of the moon.

So it makes like a little beading on the edge.

When so, when the mountains and things like that and the moon, the rigid surface creates diffraction and light.

So what was they looking at?

Little beads of light coming out.

But you wouldn't have seen it.

If unless you saw it on the TV.

Yeah, it just looks like little beads of light on the edge right before totality.

No, it's not the diamond ring effect.

Yes.

That was obvious when it came.

I had looked like a diamond ring.

Right.

And you went to Arkansas.

Did you see it all there in totality?

Oh, yeah.

I saw Bailey's beads.

I saw the diamond ring.

And I think the thing that, while last eclipse, I was very blown away by the size of the objects in the sky.

This time, I wasn't prepared for a solar maximum eclipse.

Yes.

In that way, we could see a solar flare naked eye.

Normally, we have to look through telescopes in order to magnify them enough to see them.

But at the bottom of the sun, clear as day, I guess.

There was a red line coming down off the bottom.

And I wasn't prepared for that.

The solar prominence was three times the size of Earth.

Yeah.

You know what?

You know what?

This whole thing reminded me of that day.

I was just in awe of what I was watching.

I had watched most of it on ABC.

They showed everything on there.

Anyone I went out and saw it myself.

We are very tiny in this universe.

We're just little specks of dust in the universe.

We think we mean everything.

But we mean nothing when it comes down to it.

We're not in control.

You know, whatever God created in the universe or whatever is up there, that's in control.

We're not in control of anything.

If that sun decides, I'm going to explode today and we're gone.

We're fling out of mass ejection.

Does it really matter?

So if the sun decides, I've had enough of this.

I'm tired.

We're done.

We're going to ask you when we get back from the break here.

I've got to ask you about.

When I was in school, I learned we had nine planets.

All of a sudden, we don't have nine anymore.

Well, we're going to talk about that in the moment what happened.

We used to take tests and everything.

And if you couldn't name all nine, you were in trouble.

Now you don't like the name eight.

That's coming up.

Errol Lawler and lead wider my guests from the Racine Astronomical Society.

ASAscrow.org.

If you have a question for our guest, you can text me at 262-300-7445.

I'm going to ask you about.

When I was in school, I learned we had nine planets.

I've got to ask you about.

When I was in school, I learned we had nine planets.

I've got to ask you about.

875 at W.R.J.

Thank you for joining us today.

We have two wonderful guests today.

Errol Lawler is the lead wider from the Racine Astronomical Society.

We're going to go to their website, raspastrow.org.

If you have a question for them, you can text me at 262-300-7445.

262-300-7445 and ask your question.

If it's, you know, not stupid.

No, there are no stupid.

You're absolutely right.

So we're talking about space.

Let's remind everybody this Friday night is the public night at the in Yorkville at the Modine Benz Observatory.

Where exactly is that?

It's on Highway A, right?

63rd and Highway A.

63rd and Highway A.

You can write up the interstate and you go over there and you can check it out.

And it's free to roam the grounds.

There was smaller telescope set up by members.

So if you think the line is too long for the big one and the lines go real fast.

Because they say, oh, now you can see this next.

You can come up here a little boy and then you look at that next.

So it, but it does move fast and that's good.

And you do take donations there.

Yep.

We popped a $10 bill and so that was 10.

I just popped some money in there because it is free.

And it does take money to do all this stuff.

I mean, the people keeping, you know, I know you guys have volunteers.

But when you need hard equipment, companies aren't donating that stuff.

You have to buy maintenance and taxes.

Okay.

So when I was in school, we learned there were nine planets.

Yep.

And all of a sudden, one day there aren't nine planets anymore.

They're now eight.

What happened?

So I like a lot of people.

We're very disappointed.

I'm like, how can Pluto no longer be a planet?

But then I read a book called How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

by Mike Lee Brown.

And basically what happened was they discovered that Pluto,

while it's a wonderful world, worthy of study,

is not exactly unique in our solar system.

Basically, they started finding thousands of bodies very similar to Pluto.

And we had a choice.

The International Astronomical Union had a choice.

Either we could incorporate thousands of other things as planets as well,

or they could reclassify it.

So that way we had a different category for the significant bodies

and a different category for other types of things.

It would be like, if all of a sudden we decided every asteroid is a planet,

there would be hundreds of thousands of asteroids included in that list.

But those planets interact with our solar system in more significant ways

than some of these.

I'm going to call them lesser bodies, but they're still really fascinating and interesting.

I had a book called Astronomy when I was a little kid.

Back my brother got it in the late 50s.

And they were talking about Pluto.

They called it Planet X. It was way out there in the solar system.

Why did they think it was a planet to begin with?

Somebody named it a planet. Who did that?

Well, you got to remember science is 99.9% certainty.

And that point one always can come up later and make a change.

And that's what science is.

And that's just new discoveries with new technology.

I remember when my mom and dad took me to the Sinorama Theater to see 2001 a space Odyssey.

This is when it first came out in Sinorama.

And we were just floored by it.

My father came out in the lobby and said, what the heck was that all about?

But I looked at it and say, wow, this is amazing.

And what's out there?

Kristian Lee Cooper did a great job at portraying what life is going to be like.

He got it wrong when he said they were calling on the bell system telephones in 2001.

But here we are. 2001's a long way away.

Long gone.

And they had us on Jupiter.

They had us on all these planets.

And now we're talking about Mars in reality.

Actually being on Mars.

I don't know what the temperature of Mars is.

I don't know what the air quality is.

I'm sure they don't have any.

So is there a possibility we can get on that?

Now we've sent things to Mars. There are things walking around there.

I was I was some amazed by the photography on Mars.

It's crystal clear.

When somebody robs a bank, you can't make out their face.

It's so blurry.

And that's only six feet away from them.

But here we are in Mars with a probably a camera that costs billions.

And to get it there when it landed.

And they started sending back these pictures.

You guys must have been floored by it because they were so clear and sharp.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They were great.

So when are we going to get there?

Well, I'm no astrophysicist or astronaut.

I mean, I think they're working on that.

Right?

Well, they got something there.

Great.

Do you know how to get it back?

Well, they get the data back through satellites.

But can you get a human being back?

Were you just say, welcome home?

This is your new home?

No, I think there's right now.

I think they always have a return.

They have a contingency plan.

Yeah.

They work on getting fuel there in bits and pieces.

I think the movie, the Martian.

Oh, I see.

If there's any movie that I think really depicts what the reality of it would be like.

Like Matt Damon.

Yeah.

I think that movie probably depicts it because they had, you know, the extra ships there.

They had an extra fuel there all before they actually went there.

And he built a garden.

Yes.

I thought that movie was spectacular.

Oh, I did too.

The most frightening movie I saw about space was the one with Sandra Bullock in 3D.

I never watched that.

You never want to talk it about?

No.

What's the name of that movie?

She was stuck in outer space.

She couldn't get out of it.

It's gravity, isn't it?

Gravity.

And it was in 3D.

I took my mother to see it.

And the 3D was so good.

She was reaching in the air trying to grab the tools that were leaving her.

But she was trapped in outer space.

Yeah, I couldn't.

I can't watch that movie.

Yeah.

I'm not going to tell you what happened.

But it had a good ending to it.

That's good.

Not for George Clooney.

It wasn't a good ending.

Is it ever for George Clooney?

Yes, I'm sure in life he does have some good endings.

What is the name of the telescope here that's in space right now?

We're seeing all these great shots of James Webb.

James Webb Telescope.

Massive cast-screen telescope.

Now, the images, they can bring you into other galaxies.

They can get you way out there.

The idea of that telescope was to get beyond the red shift, which is ultraviolet.

That was the premise of it because it's way out further than the Hubble telescope.

Yeah, the Hubble telescope and the James Webb telescope.

What's the difference?

They're both cast-screen telescopes.

One has an incredibly larger aperture and is further out.

And the coatings are different and the technology on it's different.

Which sees further?

James Webb.

Because it's out past the red shift.

It's all about wavelengths of light.

You say it's out past the red shift.

That means nothing to anybody listening.

It's far enough away that the light from the sun is not affecting it.

So how many miles away is it?

Oh, I know it's out past the moon.

Oh, it's not that far.

It's far enough.

Not far enough.

Yeah, but I thought it was way out there in other galaxies somewhere.

It's far enough that it's going to be real difficult to maintenance if anything ever goes wrong.

Now, how big is it?

I mean, it's...

Okay, let's...

The telescope at your observatory.

How big is the lens, you say?

It's a 16-inch.

16-inch.

What are they talking about with this James Webb?

I would have to look that one up.

I thought you guys knew it all.

No, no, no.

Oh, there is so much to know.

Like, two people can't possibly know it all.

I'm a big fan of movies and everybody says to me,

we know everything about movies.

No, I don't.

I know.

I have pockets of information, I know.

But I don't know everything, but...

Yeah, I can't even get a signal to figure that one out.

Oh, yeah.

We have Wi-Fi in the building.

But you didn't check on...

We have a Wi-Fi clicker on there.

Anyway, so...

But it's big.

It's massive.

Now...

And it's a folding mirror, which is incredible.

Are they getting images back 24-7?

Well, we just...

I think so.

Yeah.

I mean, they're like stacked images.

So the way Master of Photography works is it's a composition of multiple, multiple images in order to stack it.

It's not just like a click and it's down.

Now, who controls that telescope?

I think...

It's not controlled by anyone entity.

I think there's a whole group involved worldwide that help get that telescope up.

And I think people...

Different people have access to use of it.

Yeah, and you have to submit proposals in order to use telescopes like that.

And the governing body then decides which proposal has the most merit.

And then slots them into the times...

It's the one in Hawaii.

I think you can like...

You can submit time on it if you're involved with it and you can do it from your laptop at home.

Really?

So anybody can take a look to that telescope anytime they want?

Essentially, yeah.

But if you have to have a reason for it.

Oh.

I just want to look.

That's not...

I'm sure you can look it up on some of the ground telescopes that are out there that are computerized.

So today is Earth Day.

Yes.

And I remember the very first Earth Day.

We were talking about it with Sister Janet Wiker a few minutes ago.

She was in college.

I was in high school during the first Earth Day.

You guys weren't even born probably.

Nope.

So...

You guys are talking what's not on Earth.

But you have anything to do with the planet Earth.

Is your astronomical society to do anything to do with Earth?

It was just...

You guys want to get us out there.

I mean, we have to explain that atmosphere is thick and creates turbulence.

And you were telling me before the...

Well, with the break was on, I was telling you where I grew up.

We didn't see stars.

It was just too much pollution.

Too much light pollution is mainly it.

There were lights everywhere.

So when I looked up, I didn't see stars.

Occasionally, maybe you see some of them.

And then I moved to Georgia.

And I said, whoa.

But you showed me a map of light pollution.

Yes.

The United States light pollution, mostly in the east.

But LED lights, the white and blue or this blue and...

What was it?

The wavelength is blue and white, right?

Yeah.

And they keep you from seeing the sky.

So gradually over time in the years that I've been a part of the observatory,

even when I was there as a kid, you can see that light, that aura of light,

rising higher and higher and higher on the horizon.

I mean, that's because the amount of LEDs and just industry moving in,

I mean, Foxconn, light lights up.

You can see really the aura of that since they built that area

and did all those LEDs on that road on each.

Wow.

It's adorable.

And the biggest problem is we're not directing the light exactly where we need it to go.

In some cases, like governments will put street lights up,

that shine light up into the air.

And light going up into the air does nothing for whatever the purpose of the light is.

It just looks cool in the moment.

But when they do that, they're hiding what looks cool in the sky.

So how we combat light pollution is simply putting on light fixtures on our homes

and on our streets that shine the light down and shine it on the object we need to illuminate

and not shining it in our neighbor's yard in their bedroom window or things like that.

Shining it on the street that we need to illuminate and not shining it up into the sky where it's wasted.

I mean, that's wasted money.

We can also use different spectrums of light to light your surrounding area,

like red light or orange light.

See, this is earth-based stuff.

You guys are involved.

Yeah, I mean, because it does affect animals too.

Well, and that was the thing you talked about the eclipse.

Now, I didn't see any of my neighbor.

I did see the street lights come on during the partial eclipse.

I was out there and my neighbor said, look, light just came on.

So I don't know if it affected animals coming out because...

It did when I was in Texas and when it was totality, all the birds stopped.

And you could start hearing crickets.

Really?

Yeah.

Just for that short, and then they went...

And then once it became light again, you could hear the morning birds.

Yeah.

And it's because I thought it was nighttime.

You know, hey, it's dusk.

Let's go to sleep. Let's get ready to go to bed.

The neighbors, the birds in my neighbor said, what the heck is going on here?

Animals are definitely affected by the light.

And when we create light pollution, we are affecting them as well.

You know, we have a nature camera at home.

My son got it for us and my wife sits it up in the backyard.

And it works in 10 second increments.

So you put it down somewhere and you leave it there all night.

And every time something moves, it clicks on and you see for 10 seconds what's out there.

You can't believe what's going on in your backyard's folks in the middle of the night.

You know, we're sleeping and there's a lot of activity going on there in your yard.

Possums and all types of critters, a fox.

You may find it in your neighborhood.

You might find a deer running around your neighborhood.

There were cats roaming around the whole night long.

We had...

We were watching this thing.

All of a sudden a giant face came in front of the camera.

It was a cat.

And he looked in the camera.

I know you see these giant whiskers and these two big eyes.

But you see possums and everything running around out there at night with a darkness.

I want to get a low down in just a moment.

How do you guys get started and all this?

Because they're maybe seeing young kids today saying, I want to be part of that.

I have this little telescope.

My parents got me for Christmas.

What do I do?

That's coming up here.

W-R-C-N.

I'm Don Rosen.

749.

hometown radio refresh.

You got a question for our guests.

262-300-7445-262-300-7445.

What?

Jello, you know what they make Jello out of bones and hooves?

I always thought there was an urban legend.

Bones and hoo...

What kind of mad man?

Let me have the bones and hooves.

I've got an idea for a kid's desert.

It'll be huge.

We'll get Cosby to do the commercials.

Everyone trusts him.

Anyone using the eyeballs?

I can make an advocate.

I've got tons of ideas.

They say laughter is the best medicine.

And it is.

After you've received real medicine.

From a real medical professional.

Prior to that, you don't want any laughter.

You don't want a doctor giggling during an exam.

Oh my gosh.

This is your body?

Nice man boobs.

You get a hold on you believe it.

Like the weather.

Before you know it, you'll be on your knees.

She's an easy lover.

You'll take your heart, but you won't be late.

She's like the weather.

And I'm just trying to make you see.

She's the kind of girl you dream of.

Dream of keeping hold up.

Better forget it.

You'll never get it.

She will way around and leave you.

Leave you when it's safe you.

Better forget it.

Oh you regret it.

You'll never change it.

So leave it.

Get up quick.

You'll never leave it.

753 WRJN.

The home town radio refresh to civic media station.

Sharon Lawler is here along with Lee Widener from the

Racine Astronomical Society.

R-A-S-S-S-Tro.

Check out their website.

You realize it was every month from April through October.

That's nice.

And just hope for a clear night.

Yeah.

I mean, we have had cloudy nights before.

And people often ask us, well, are you going to reschedule

if you have a cloudy night?

And it takes so many volunteers to make these events happen

that it's really difficult for us to reschedule.

But if people want more astronomy in their lives,

if you become a member, we have additional events

that are just members only.

So instead of sharing the observatory with 500 people

on a public night, you would share the observatory

on a member's night with maybe 35 other people.

And basically, you get to see more astronomy during those nights.

And how do you become a member?

Well, it's pretty simple.

You send in an application and you pay your dues.

And you can pay your dues either online or through the mail

or by showing up to one of our events and saying,

hey, I'd like to become a member.

So before we ask how other kids can get started in astronomy,

how did you guys do it?

I grew up with it.

Yeah.

I spent a lot of time out there when I was a kid.

My grandpa being the guy that pretty much ran the 16.

I mean, I was out there in the middle of winter

in a sleeping bag just waiting for Jupiter to cross the slot.

And he just said, don't tell your mother.

And I'll make it Belgium waffles in the morning.

So you actually grew up with it.

Yeah.

And so it was kind of...

You didn't...

You didn't just wake up one day and say,

I want to see what's up there.

I mean, later in life, I did.

Yeah, but you would kind of brought into it in the early age.

What about you, Lee?

So for me, I always enjoyed science growing up.

Like, I was one of those kids that had dinosaur posters

and solar system posters.

And then I kind of became a teenager,

did teenager things.

And then as an adult, I was looking for things to do in Racine

because I wanted to just get out,

do something a little different, you know.

And on one of the free event boards,

I saw that there was an observatory.

And I'm like, I've lived here for how long at this point,

decades, and I did not know that there was an observatory

in Racine County.

And I'm like, how did I not know this?

I mean, and people say that to me all the time at public nights.

How did I not know you guys existed?

Well, that's what we're talking about.

Is that the contrary?

I think that everybody's grandpa built an observatory.

Yeah.

So young kids today, they want to get started.

How do they get started?

I mean, there's a couple of ways you could get started.

You can go out and get your first telescope

or like I was saying, you can become a member.

You don't have to have a lot of knowledge to become a member.

Is there an age limit?

No.

So a parent can join,

and then anybody under 16?

16, right?

It's like under 16 joints.

Yeah, they're free.

They're a family.

So if a parent wants to get their kids into astronomy,

they can join and then get their kids involved with that.

I mean, we don't necessarily have like a junior program,

but my kids are into it,

and my daughter's got her own telescope.

So you're doing what your grandfather did?

Yeah, I'm nurturing it.

Yeah, you put them in an early age.

And you know what?

This is not a fad.

The world's not going away out there.

So this is not like the macarena

where people are going to forget about it in a few years.

This is up there.

If the light pollution gets in the way,

it might...

Well, yeah.

Well, then we're moving to Montana.

Let's see the sky out there.

You know, I have never seen the Aurora Borealis in person,

but I have movies of it.

And I think that's an amazing thing.

People in Northern Wisconsin claim they can see it.

We've seen it here.

Yeah, we've got pictures over the dome.

It seems to be really.

Yeah.

And when was the last time?