Starting May 9, 2013 and throughout the month, I’ll be available on certain school days in May for author visits/demos of some of the science experiments related to the books in my “Machines of the Future” series with Kids Can Press.

AND!!! I’ll be available to serve-up interactive 3D photorealistic motion graphics for schools in a 35-seat mobile planetarium I’m bringing on-tour.

While I’m in Ontario, the dome is called “The Peterborough Planetarium” and serves Peterborough, Durham, Northumberland, and surrounding counties.During this exciting time out East, the dome could be called “The St John Planetarium”, “The Yarmouth Planetarium”, “The Truro Planetarium” or wherever else your school or other institution may be.

• More on the planetarium
• More on the presenter
• More on the shows
• Author presentations
• Testimonials / presenting package
• Media appearances
• FAQs

“We had so many emails [after your presentation] from parents expressing their child’s excitement. Best day ever…”– Claudia Langlois, Northumberland Montessori School

“Our classes were floored!…The planetarium was the highlight of our year…” – Kristin Chesher, St Dominic Elementary School, Lindsay

“Peter & Rick had a group of hard-to-impress Grade 10s staring in silence, their jaws halfway to the floor…What an investment in inspiring the next-gen of scientists, engineers & explorers!” – David Howard, Cobourg East High School

After a show full of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’, we had truly been on an extra-ordinary field trip without the hassle of leaving our school.“  – Terry Moodie, Keith Wightman, Peterborough

***THIS JUST IN!*** Each new booked visit will receive a FREE signed copy of Peter’s science experiment book “Space Tourism”.

Students, teachers, parents and others may purchase additional personally signed copies of Space Tourism or Ultimate Trains for $20/each, tax-included.

The public is invited to a FREE open house to see the planetarium in action, Sept 20 from 4-8 pm at the Peterborough Museum and Archives.

• More on our presentations
• More on our presenters
• In the media

Educators, groups, institutions and individuals interested in booking this portable facility can call or email co-presenter PeterMcMahon for further inquiries and/or to book a show:
bookings@peterboroughplanetarium.com /905.885.9471

For general information, email info@peterboroughplanetarium.com

The talk includes an on-stage demos of his latest do-it-yourself kids science projects and a new “G-force launch simulator” (with the help of an audience volunteer), an iPad (that they look at a launch simulation video on – the audience sees a version on the big screen at the same time) and an ordinary office chair, on which they experience centrifugal force while wearing a Bristol-board “helmet” to keep them from seeing anything but the iPad screen while all this is happening.

Click to see how all this combined creates the sensation of moving forward at incredible speed…

From trains of the future to space tourism, and from what killed the dinosaurs to 101 uses for a particle accelerator, Peter’s slate of dozens of diverse and curriculum-specific presentations for students have met with acclaim across Canada.

Download 2012/2013 speaking package

You can take a look at some of Peter’s space and science talks – as well as testimonials from educational institutions – in 2012-2013_astronomy_speaking_package_peter_mcmahon

Contact Peter

Like what you see? You can contact Peter directly to talk about the various types of school visit presentations he does via phone or email: 289.251.3551 OR peter.mcmahon@noticemyscience.com

The “demo reel”

Check out Peter’s latest presentation, including an audience-participation G-force simulator on-stage

You can also see Peter in action at a school visit in the CBC/CHEX TV segments below, where he shares a series of aerospace-related hands-on activities with kids at St Catherine Elementary School:

In addition to a feature on the Canadian Space Agency’s new plans for capacity-building with universities, I recently looked at the ups-and-downs of Canadian satellite giant Telesat.

You can preview the latest issue and subscribe to it, on Space Quarterly’s web site http://spacerefpress.com/sq/

Check out the video below of a working version (and how others have built it.)

The launch starts at 0:56, with the deployment of the “helicopter” blades about 10 seconds later…

Recently, I had the fun task of demonstrating some of the kids science experiments I’m offering for kids who sign up for one of my 2012 Summer Discovery day camps at the Peterborough Museum and Archives. (00:09 – 01:44)

At the same time, I also demoed some of the portable stargazing gear we’ll be using (02:12 – 10:14) which you can also use during a car, shoe, or canoe-based camping trip during the Awesome Astro Adventure camp.

Click to check out all the goodies, as we used them for views of the Moon and (filtered) views of the Sun.

Scopes from my sponsor Telescopes.ca demonstrated in this video include a Sky-Watcher Heritage P130 5″ travel scope (my favourite new scope I’ve started recommending for vacationers), a Sky-Watcher ED80 3″ refractor (on my own older EQ5 mount) with a Kendrick solar filter, and a Sky-Watcher 12.5″ collapsable Dobsonian (in my opinion, this is the largest scope available that one person can carry, albeit in two trips! What a glorious light bucket this is..)

Also, here’s some footage (04:06 – 06:24) of a rocket-copter I’m modifying from an existing design for one of the same summer science camps.

Eventually, the fins will unfold and become helicopter blades that will guide it back down to Earth after launch (that should start to happen about 100 feet in the air – in this video, it happens about 2 feet in the air, just before “touch-down”.)

Science and astronomy journalist Peter McMahon’s week-long science and space day-camps run July 16-20 and August 27-31 at the Peterborough Centennial Museum

Here, you’ll find the locations I’ve covered in the Wilderness Astronomer column I write in each issue of 

Each guide below includes a link to more information on observing sites, events, dining/accommodation, and other information about each destination I couldn’t fit in the print column.

To get the actual magazine column itself, you can find Sky News on many newsstands in Canada (including newsstands at WalMart), subscribe to it, or buy a digital copy, here.

Peter McMahon is fast-becoming one of Canada’s most sought-after science/space presenters. (Don’t believe us? Check out this bio and these kudos.)

See below to find out when Peter will be coming to an area near you this summer.

You can also scan available dates below when you can still book Peter for park or resort-based interactive presentations for families and guided sky observing with telescopes, GPS star finders, augmented reality apps, and image stabilized binoculars. (See below videos for demos)

Available dates:

If you’re a park or resort looking to capitalize on the astronomy juggernaut (or find out how astronomy in wild spaces got to be a juggernaut in the first place and how it can be for you), drop Peter a line to talk about some of his available dates:

July 2012: July 3-12, July 21-31 (Western/Northern Ontario, Sask/Alberta)

August 2012: Aug 1-10, Aug 14-27 (Sask/Alberta)

September 2012: Sept 1-6, Sept 10-13, Sept 15-30 (Northern Ontario/Ontario/GTA/Maritimes )

Available presentations:

From Sasquatches in the sky, to a hands-on look at space tourism…from the savory “2012: A Space Entrée” to  ”Celebrity Tour of the Night Sky”, Peter offers the most prolific (and innovative) slate of science and astronomy talks in Canada and the ONLY slate of audience-participation space talks from coast-to-coast.

WAY more!

• Peter’s full slate of family-friendly presentations for resorts and parks
• Testimonials of Peter’s presentations at resorts and parts across Canada
• Peter’s bio (I promise, it’s an interesting read AND fully illustrated : )
• Rates (ask about rate-splitting discounts), services, and highlight-reel of previous presentation locations
• AND…check out Peter in action in the science/astronomy demo videos below!

“Recently, I had the fun task of demonstrating some of the kids science experiments I’m offering for kids who sign up for one of my 2012 Summer Discovery day camps at the Peterborough Museum and Archives. (00:09 – 01:44)

At the same time, I also demoed some of the portable stargazing gear we’ll be using (02:12 – 10:14) which you can also use during a car, shoe, or canoe-based camping trip during the Awesome Astro Adventure camp.

Click to check out all the goodies, as we used them for views of the Moon and (filtered) views of the Sun.

Scopes from my sponsor Telescopes.ca demonstrated in this video include a Sky-Watcher Heritage P130 5″ travel scope (my favourite new scope I’ve started recommending for vacationers), a Sky-Watcher ED80 3″ refractor (on my own older EQ5 mount) with a Kendrick solar filter, and a Sky-Watcher 12.5″ collapsable Dobsonian (in my opinion, this is the largest scope available that one person can carry, albeit in two trips! What a glorious light bucket this is..)

Also, here’s some footage (04:06 – 06:24) of a rocket-copter I’m modifying from an existing design for one of the same summer science camps.

Eventually, the fins will unfold and become helicopter blades that will guide it back down to Earth after launch (that should start to happen about 100 feet in the air – in this video, it happens about 2 feet in the air, just before “touch-down”.)” - Peter McMahon

This is a “reboot” of a posting I originally wrote for wildernessastronomy.com after serving in the Canadian Rockies as Jasper National Park’s astronomy-writer-in-residence throughout October of 2011.

***All images in this post were taken by me, except the top image on this page, which was actually taken by my friend and colleague Yuichi Takasaka while we were in Jasper the year before on assignment for Canadian Geographic.***

I was feeling a bit melancholy at the end of this month – and not due to the end of the warm season here in Ontario, or the ominous approach of Halloween (which I actually really love.) I was mourning the end of what felt like one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments – Like a kid at the end of a great season of summer camp, not knowing if they’ll ever be back:

(Above: The river widens at midnight below Jasper’s Athebasca Falls (click for full-res to see the extent of stars. Image: Peter McMahon)

For most of October, I spent the month living in the Canadian Rockies as astronomy-writer-in-residencefor Jasper National Park – I’d proposed and helped create the world’s largest “astronomy park” or dark sky preserve there the year before.

Yuichi and I presenting to a crowd of about 100 at Jasper Park Lodge's Mountain Galleries on Oct 21

Sharing astronomy in the mountains

While in Jasper this month, I worked on astronomy-related writing projects (my next column for Sky News magazine and a few proposals for new kids books I’d been asked to do by my publisher.) I also gave what averaged out to an astronomy talk nearly every business day (from “wilderness astronomy” destinations across Canada, to space tourism for kids 9-99, to something I came up with for the restaurants in the park called “2011: A Space Entrée”)

I also did more than a dozen day and night-time stargazing sessions with several hundred visitors to the park and Jasper residents. In almost every case, the skies were clear enough to train telescopes and  image-stabilized binoculars from Telescopes.ca as well as GPS starfinders and iPad apps on Jupiter (and 3-4 of its 63-known moons), the Perseus Double star cluster, the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and more. In the image here, we checked out fine details on the Moon with two large 10″ Dobsonian telescopes.

Moonlight over the falls from Bridge 1 at Maligne Canyon in Jasper National Park (the area at upper-left is directly overhead, while the area at lower right is two degrees from the photographer’s shoes. Image: Peter McMahon)

The experience also afforded me the chance to photograph Jasper at night with a new 6.5mm fisheye lens that let me to capture moonrise over waterfalls and galaxies rising over canyons.

RASC Edmonton astronomer looks through Peter's Skywatcher Heritage 130 (courtesy Telescopes.ca) on the VIA Rail trip to the Jasper Dark Sky Festival on Oct 21

I even got to pull off some stunts, like showing folks telescope views of the Sun and the Moon on a moving train that was taking them to Jasper’s inaugural dark sky festival.

Just the beginning…

When I think of all the first happening in this park and the crowds already gathering for a look through the telescope eyepieces, I start to dream of the historical plaques that might mention Jasper’s long history as a night sky destination…and some of the people I know in the coming decades and beyond:

Jasper Dark Sky Festival attendees view the International Space Station passing overhead on Oct 22, some using Canon IS Image Stabilizer binoculars from Telescopes.ca

People like Gloria Keyes-Brady, Parks Canada’s head of interpreters in Jasper, who first got excited about a dark sky designation as I started to describe what it entailed back in March 2010.

Or Jasper marketing manager Rogier Gruys, who spent every possible opportunity on every clear night for half a year photographing and taking light meter readings for putting together Jasper’s DSP application.

Or park head interpreter Brian Catto, who carried out the bulk of the actual astronomy interpretive programming in the park during and after its record-breaking designation.

Or Tourism Jasper CEO Maggie Davison, who constantly asked “How can we make this happen” on everything from bringing me in as astro-writer-in-residence to creating magical experiences for dark sky festival attendees.

Jasper's Athabasca Falls in the moonlight in early October, under (from left-to-right) The Big Dipper, Draco, Gemini, and Orion

Or Tourism Jasper CEO Maggie Davison, who constantly asked “How can we make this happen” on everything from bringing me in as astro-writer-in-residence to creating magical experiences for dark sky festival attendees.

Special thanks HAS to go out to two of my sponsors in-particular:

Telescopes.ca for having the faith in me as a brand to loan and (in many cases) give me telescopes and binoculars to show people the sky in all these wonderful locations. And to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, for believing in me and this project enough to supply in-kind for part of my food AND to put me up in a suite to live, work, and otherwise be based out of, for the entire month of October.

October stars above the pool at the main lodge on Lac Beauvert at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge

Bye-bye mountain : (

The unhappy task of watching the mountains recede in my rear-view mirror came after what seemed like another lifetime.

On the way out of the park, I looked back with glassy eyes at the entrance to the world’s largest dark sky preserve – not because I thought I’d never be back, but because I knew I’d always be back.