Shawn Laatsch was destined to work in a planetarium. In Wausau, Wisconsin, as a teenager, his high school operated the Wausau School District Planetarium at West High. As a student, Laatsch became fascinated with the inner workings of the place, pestering the facility’s director to let him learn more about it, and eventually volunteering.
“He let me bring down the lights and turn on the stars, and it really left a lasting impact on me,” said Laatsch, director of the Emera Maine Astronomy Center and Jordan Planetarium at the University of Maine. “As a high school student, every day after school I showed up and asked ‘Can I do this? Can I do this?’ I think he knew I was serious about it… by the time I was 15 he put me in charge of the public shows, which was around the time Halley’s Comet was coming, and it just snowballed from there.”
His career has since taken him all over the planet — from the planetarium at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii, to lecturing in Brazil, New Zealand, Russia and elsewhere — teaching countless children about astronomy.
Soon, in addition to his position at UMaine, Laatsch will also become president of the International Planetarium Society, a coalition of planetarium directors, educators and employees with more than 700 members from 35 nations. As president, a role that begins in January 2017, he’ll give lectures all over the world, including several in Italy in February and in Japan in the fall. He’ll also attend 2018 IPS conference in Toulouse, France.
“I get to work with planetariums from around the globe. It’s a great honor to be elected by your colleagues,” he said. “I’ll get some really unique travel opportunities and be a part of lots of new and cool things.”
Laatsch, an enthusiastic scientist and educator, has aspirations for the UMaine facility well beyond simply offering star shows to school groups. In 2016 — his first year as director — he has invited many different individuals and organizations from both the University and the greater Bangor area into the planetarium, launching a new science lecture series, new programming for adults, and offering up the space to host a UMaine theater production “Constellations.”
Since moving in 2014 from its old location at Wingate Hall into it’s brand-new facility in the far northeast corner of campus, the Emera Maine Astronomy Center and Jordan Planetarium has blossomed into a center for scientific education for all ages. With its 33-foot dome and pair of ultra high definition digital projectors, the planetarium is the largest and most technologically advanced in the state.
“We are a visualization theater. We can do so much with this technology,” said Laatsch. “We can do things like go inside the human body, look at things on a microscale, show climate change data… If it can be built on a computer, it can be displayed here. You can really visualize complex topics in a very dramatic way.”
Looking ahead to 2017, Laatsch has plans to both offer new events at the Emera Maine Astronomy Center and continue the programs launched in 2016, including the popular monthly science lecture series. New partnerships with the Maine Discovery Museum, the Challenger Learning Center, the Bangor Public Library (all located in Bangor) and the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum in Bethel are planned. There’s also a new show in the works for February called “Stars,” narrated by Mark Hamill. In addition to the planetarium presentation, that show will feature short pre-show performances by Bangor Symphony Orchestra musicians, in advance of the BSO’s “Music of Star Wars” pops concerts on planned for the Collins Center at UMaine on March 4 and 5.
In addition to the planetarium, the center is home to an observatory with a 20-inch reflecting telescope, the second-largest in the state. It will soon be joined by the historic 8-inch Clark telescope, which was built in 1905 and until the fall of 2016 was housed in the crumbling 330-square-foot observatory next to the Memorial Union on campus. A new observatory for the telescope will be open sometime in the spring of 2017.
Here in Maine, Laatsch sees some similarities to the place where he got his start, back in Wisconsin.
“Maine reminds me a lot of where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin — there are a lot of wonderful dark skies,” said Laatsch. “It’s a perfect place to be if you want to look at the skies.”
Maine is one of the best places in the Northeastern U.S. to see the stars — with less light pollution than in more urban areas, the stars are much more visible than in other parts of the country.
“Because Maine has a very low population base there aren’t so many lights, and it does tend to be a darker area with very good dark skies,” said Laatsch. “Particularly here in the Northeast, because once you get to Boston and New York it’s totally lit up. It’s hard to see anything at all.”
Over the holidays, Laatsch traveled back to his hometown of Wausau, where the planetarium where he got his start is undergoing a major renovation, including the installation of a new digital system. In many ways, he’s come full circle.
“[That’s] where I was inspired to go into this field,” he said. “The planetarium director there, Chris Janssen, invited me to see it and say a few words about the facility, about how I was inspired there as a second grader and later worked there as a high school student. It is great to see this facility is inspiring the next generation of students to explore science.”
“It’s kind of neat to have it all come full circle,” said Laatsch.
