CCM's Planetarium Show "Tour of the Planets" Is Out Of This World

Winter in New Jersey hasn’t been full of sledding and outdoor winter fun. It’s been a mix of oddly warm days, intermixed with absurdly cold ones, while we’ve all been splashed with a lot of rain.

I was looking for something different to do indoors yesterday, Saturday, January 26 and saw that County College of Morris was offering a planetarium show, “Tour of the Planets” playing at 5pm. Tickets were very reasonable at $10 per person, so I bought 4 for me, my husband and our elementary school age girls.

The presenting astronomer was Christopher Fenwick, who oversaw the circular 90-seat theater. There was not a bad seat in the house, as we all gazed up at the domed ceiling above us, and the 2011 $800,000 upgrade was still evident as everything looks very new inside Room 207 within Cohen Hall.

The show began with what we can see without a telescope or fancy equipment, from our own backyards. Chris was incredibly engaging - moving around the room as he controlled the sky above us, relating constellations to history as well as the present (such as explaining why Sirius Satellite Radio has a dog as a mascot - Sirius is the brightest star visible from Earth and is part of the constellation Canis Major). He’s a really funny guy: This was no lecture. His show was well-organized, but he was speaking with us, not at us.

Chris zoomed each planet into view and had a call to action to the kids challenging them to become scientists who can solve the mystery of why Uranus rotates on its side unlike any of our solar system’s other planets. My kids giggled at his jokes, enjoying that there were “stinky” planets and “blankets” of atmosphere that make earth habitable that, when missing, can make a planet like Mercury go from “hot as an oven” to “freezing cold” within just minutes.

Because the setting was small enough, both kids and adults took breaks from stargazing to ask questions, and I think we all enjoyed them. Chris fluidly responded to questions such as the difficulties in sustaining life on Mars, despite the current capability in getting there.

The show ran over the hour, but everyone was still regarding the celestial show with rapt attention. As we walked away, my husband remarked, “That guy is a teacher anyone would want to have. I learned a lot.”

Afterwards, on the way home, we stopped at Noches De Colombia which is a large restaurant on the westbound side of Route 10. They have an expansive menu and feature an in-house bakery and takeout-area with a large, bustling dining area. The food was very fresh and good, so if you take a trip to the Planetarium from Parsippany, it is both on your way there and on your way home, and definitely worthy of consideration (and, they have a nice kids menu).

CCM has a number of planetarium shows coming up - Tour of the Planets continues through April as does Our Stormy Space. There is a special 2-show Harry Potter event coming in March where the sky will light up with all of the space-related references in the popular book/movie series.

Tickets are available for purchase online.

Royalty free cover image courtesy of Pexels.com.