Love and stars in the night sky over Boro

It’s that time of the year again. Restaurants are filled with reservations. The scent of fresh-cut roses fill the air. Your local winery sees a peak in sales. That’s right, it’s Valentine’s Day. 

While some couples were stuck dealing with long wait times and pricey steak dinners, those in the university planetarium got a much different experience. For the select crowd that was huddled inside Cooper Hall, it was a night of wedding games, indoor star gazing and a laser light show to finish off the evening.

The planetarium puts on several, free-to-the-public shows each year, with multiple varying themes, ranging from children’s shows to light shows and holiday programs. For this year’s Valentine’s Day show, the theme was “The Stars Are Ours,” based upon The Nylons song of a similar title. 

The show started off with Dr. David Hurd, the planetarium director, giving a brief explanation of the evening, before diverting focus to the crowd with questions like “who’s been married longest?” and “who has been dating longest?”

The content of the show was split into three parts: planetarium star viewing, wedding games, and finally, the laser light show.

“Stars are romantic, right? So what we did was we came up with some activities before the show to make it more of a couples oriented show. To tie it into the night sky, we highlighted some celestial couples,” said Hurd. 

Some of the couples highlighted were Andromeda and Perseus, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, and even the Gemini twins, highlighting the notion of brotherly love. 

Following a “star shootout,” where couples went against other couples in trying to spot constellations in the planetarium sky, two lucky couples had the chance to compete in the shoe game. The shoe game, played commonly at weddings, tested the couples’ knowledge of who’s who in their relationships, ultimately having one couple leaving with a glass set themed after the planets.

After that, everyone sat back and relaxed while watching several short laser light show clips concerning the story of Andromeda and Perseus, as well as some musical and visual pieces.

Lastly, with the crowd lit only by the light of the “stars” above, the Nylons song “The Stars Are Ours” played while couples arm in arm viewed the crystal clear night sky above. Sadly, it was cut short due to technical difficulties, but for the moments it was playing, the planetarium was filled with watchful eyes.

Following the show, the crowd was greeted with punch and cookies to tie off the night and complete the uncommon date night idea.

If you are interested in seeing one of the free shows offered at the Edinboro University planetarium, visit edinboro.edu and search “planetarium” for more information.

Roman Sabella can be reached at eupnews.spectator@gmail.com.

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