Art, Science To Unite At Vernal Equinox

Samford's Christenberry Planeterium will host a combined poetry reading and astronomy presentation at 7 p.m. on March 20--the astronomical vernal equinox, marking the arrival of spring.

The event, Vox Equinox, will feature Birmingham's Big Table Poets reading work from their forthcoming anthology Einstein at the Odeon Caf. Planetarium director George Atchley will place the vernal equinox in its astronomical perspective, inviting an exploration of the common obsession of art and science beneath a dome of stars.

The Big Table Poets take their name, literally, from the large table at a Birmingham bookstore where they meet to critique their work and, figuratively, from the wide range of approaches to poetry their work represents. The "Big Table" accommodates free verse and poetry in traditional forms, the lyrical, the meditative, and the narrative, low humor and high seriousness, all drawn from the diverse lives, experiences, interests, and even obsessions of the Big Table Poets themselves.

The Vox Equinox event is free of charge and open to the public.

Get in Touch with the Universe: Public Viewing of Space Images Feb. 17

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected Samford University's Christenberry Planetarium as one of 100 sites in the United States to display two spectacular images Feb. 17 from its Great Space Observatories: the Hubble Space Telescope, The Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

This selection is in response to the United Nations declaring 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy, and is in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first observance of the solar system through a telescope.

The Birmingham Astronomical Society will host the free event with live presentations and telescopes for people to look through at 7 p.m. that night. Spectacular globular star clusters and star-forming regions called nebulae will be visible, according to George Atchley, Samford planetarium director.