Seeing and understanding the night sky can change your life — just ask the director of the Mt. Hood Community College Planetarium.
As a student at Centennial High School, William Blackmore was floored by what he discovered on the projector in the planetarium. He had been going through some personal struggles, along with the usual hurdles we all face in high school. But through all that, he held onto this passion for science.
“My mom would say I wanted to be an astrophysicist before I could even say that word,” he said with a laugh. “I stepped into this room and found significant meaning.”
After life took him to teaching gigs around the world, always with an eye on the sky, Blackmore returned to East Multnomah County. He began teaching 10 years ago at MHCC — physics, astronomy, engineering — while also filling in at the planetarium.
Last fall he was hired as director, just as the planetarium was being dusted off following several years of being closed in the wake of the pandemic. Now since January the shows have been ramped up, curated by the careful touch of Blackmore, who scours the universe for amazing images and pairs them with ethereal music.
“My style is that I love not just being a teacher, but the aesthetic beauty in all of this,” Blackmore said.
A planetarium is different from an observatory. It is a theater that displays the night sky on a domed ceiling, able to show different filters or simulations of how celestial objects move.
“It is a way to observe, display and fly through the universe,” Blackmore said.
Each month’s show is different at MHCC. Recent ones have included solar eclipses and a deep dive into the James Webb Space Telescope. The common theme: beautiful images that will let you experience how massive the universe is.
“I love seeing that spark in kids of all ages when they realize,” Blackmore said.
Planets and constellations
Blackmore remembers his own spark visiting the planetarium.
It was provided by one of his predecessors, Doug McCarty, during a show.
“Doug would do so many great things as a teacher, but I remember he would often play audio recordings from Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot,’” Blackmore said. “It would bring me to tears every time, that perspective is humbling and encouraging.”
Because the MHCC shows are hand-crafted, there are opportunities for questions and interactions, a tradition Blackmore has continued. Following his showcases, he loves to spin things up and travel all over the universe.
It leads to less of a show and more of a conversation.
“There is that personal touch — you have an astronomer present to answer questions and hang out with you,” Blackmore said. “There is more of that personal experience as opposed to a get-in, get-out.”
“We want to be a community resource,” he added.
He can superimpose the constellations over the stars, or show the Milky Way in infrared; he can track the movement of asteroids or the spinning of the many moons around Jupiter; he can zoom in on Earth and show the lights that can be seen from the International Space Station.
“There is so much out there for us to explore,” he said.
The MHCC Planetarium shows are at 6:30 and 8 p.m. the first and third Thursday every month. General admission is $5, students $2, and children 15 and younger are free. The space has 70 seats, and tickets can be purchased at the door. Learn more at mhcc.edu/planetarium.
There are more exciting plans in the future, with Blackmore looking into ways to get people excited about the stars. He wants to utilize the space for new types of public shows, including a combo with the music school that could have improvised jazz paired with the planets.
“It is all about leaving with that sense of wonder,” Blackmore said.
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