The Hubble Telescope Exhibit

The East Kentucky Science Center in Prestonsburg will be hosting The Hubble Telescope Traveling Exhibit for the next several months. The exhibit begins on Saturday, January 21, 2017 and we were treated to a preview of the exhibit on Friday night. The President of Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Dr. Alan Scheibmeir, welcomed a rather large crowd to the evening’s festivities. Local attorney, John Rosenberg, recalled the history of the science center. He recalled a time 20 years ago when local professors taught aerodynamic using a fan and a roll of toilet paper. John told of a grass roots group that started about 20 years ago by grant writing and gathering local political support and by 1998 the group succeeded in getting funding to build our science center. The ground breaking was held in 2002. Now Prestonsburg is the site of a state of the art planetarium, one of the best in the United States. As a photographer, I am always looking at other people’s work, but I must say that my long lens cannot compare to the Hubble! The exhibit showcases photographs taken with the Hubble telescope. One of the exhibits said that if you had the ability to have the telescope on earth, you could look through it in New York City and see fireflies in San Francisco!

The exhibit came to Prestonsburg on Tuesday, loaded on 3 Mayflower moving vans and it took a great group of local students and volunteers to load the displays into the Science Center. Working long hours each day, the group worked furiously to get the exhibit functioning for all of us to enjoy. Steve Russo, Director of the East Kentucky Science Center spoke to the audience about how excited he is to present this exhibit to the students of eastern Kentucky. “After the moon landings, Hubble has always been my favorite object that has been launched into space, the technological advancements are amazing. I’m like a kid waking up on Christmas present waiting to open up the presents.” Steve was proud to introduce Nasa representative Maurice Henderson who said of Steve, “I am happy to be in the room where there are two of us living out our childhood dreams.” Maurice gave a wonderful presentation of the history of the Hubble Telescope that educated us all with interesting facts and wonderful examples of the photography that it can show us, we have so much to learn.

The East Kentucky Science Center and Planetarium is open Tuesday through Friday from 1pm to 4pm and on Saturday from noon to 4pm. This exhibit is so interesting and educational, I encourage everyone to visit the science center and view it in person. We are very fortunate to have an exhibit of this magnitude so close to home.