From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:42 EDT
October 25, 2002 == MEDIA ADVISORY
On Tuesday, October 29, PBS will air a special two-hour episode of Nova (from
8-10 pm) entitled "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens." Among the visuals
illustrating Galileo's discoveries will be images of Venus and Jupiter taken by
Calvin College students.
How PBS discovered the Calvin students is an interesting example of life in the
internet age. Simply put, says Calvin astronomy professor Larry Molnar, when
the people producing the Nova special began their work among the things they did
for research was an internet search. That search yielded the homepage for the
Calvin College observatory and a gallery of images taken by Calvin students
using the school's primary Celestron telescope and a digital camera along with a
PC and a special astronomy software package.
The Nova producers liked what they saw so much they contacted Calvin, asking
for permission to use the images. Molnar happily complied, supplying the show
with a number of high-quality images. In fact, later Nova asked for a wide
field image of how Venus looks to an observer without a telescope. So Molnar
took a photo from the Calvin courtyard of Venus as the evening star above an
identifiable silhouette of the Calvin Science Building. He doesn't know whether
they included that shot in the final cut or not. But he does know that "Calvin
College Observatory" will be included in the credits at the end of the program.
Calvin plans to show the special in its new DeVos Communication Center
(dedicated on October 25) on the four plasma screens in the building's main
lobby.
For more on Calvin's observatory and programs see
http://www.calvin.edu/observatory
For more on the upcoming PBS show see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/galileo/
-end-
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