Each year, the Merrillville Community Planetarium offers four different public programs -- one for each season. Our fall program is in October, winter show in January, spring program in April, and summer show in July.

How do we choose our public shows? There is somewhat of a formula. Each year, we try to offer one program as a family show. We also offer a constellation show as one of the four seasonal programs. One year we might offer "The Winter Sky" in January and the next year, "The Fall Sky" in October. So, out of four public programs in a year, one will be a family show and another will feature constellations.

That leaves two programs yet to assigned for the year. If there is an important sky event -- an eclipse or something special regarding a planet -- we try to provide a planetarium program regarding the event. We also look for anniversaries -- such as the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik or the 40th anniversary of the first landing of humans on the moon. With more than 50 programs in our library, we have many choices available to us each year.

For 2009-2010, we chose "MoonWitch" as our fall program. "MoonWitch" is our family program for the year and it has a fall theme. "Art for All Time" is a new program and it fills our January slot. April 2010 will be the 20th anniversary of the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope. That made "Through the Eyes of Hubble" an easy choice for our spring public show. Finally, that left July for "The Summer Sky", our constellation show for 2009-2010.

What programs will we offer to the public next year? I don't know. Usually, I make the selection in late August to early September prior to our fall mailing that goes out around the middle of September.

-- Gregg Williams, Planetarium Director