Mississauga Astronomical Society

62nd Meeting

     Speaker's Night

Day:                Friday, May 12, 2006

Speaker:  Glenn Norman

Stars on TV

Glenn Norman had his debut on TV at age 9 on the show “To Tell the Truth” when he was featured as Canada’s youngest astronaut. He has been a pilot since the age of 18, a writer all his life, and a producer of TV shows.

Glenn described his first astronomical encounter in 1958 when he saw the rings of Saturn through Jesse Ketchum’s telescope in 1958 at the CNE. He was hooked on astronomy ever since, attended RASC meetings, married, bought an airplane and participated in air races. In 1973, he took part in the Belvedere Air dash, flying across the country. He had a near death experience flying a motorized wing and then decided to go into astronomy buying a LX200 telescope. He attended star parties and thought about how to get more people interested in astronomy. With his work as a screen writer, he attempted to get astronomy into TV shows.

In one of the shows of “The Cambells”, he was able to weave a story and explanation of precession using an ancient native stone observatory in the plot line.  In the World War II series “Vulcan”, he had a flier looking through an astronomical telescope prior to a mission in order to calm his nerves. In “There Be a Monster Here”, he showed a space creature. In the UN cartoon film “Ozzy Ozone”, he demonstrated the threat of ozone depletion.

One of Glenn’s best astronomical TV successes was with a series that showed a helicopter chase to find as meteorite which ended up being a carbonaceous chondrite. The show also detailed the problem of light pollution on an observatory named after the our MAS president and suggested low pressure sodium lighting as a solution.

Coming soon are the shows “Seeing the Earth”, “Seeing the Moon”, “Seeing the Universe” in an antique biplane.  Finally, Glenn discussed the difficulty of making shows in Canada with co-producers.   

Astronomy Day 2006, Objects to see in the Sky

Randy Attwood spoke about the Mississauga Astronomical Society Astronomy Day. Both he and Ken Bokor were interviewed on television, on the Local Matters  program for Rogers TV, and on First Local in Brampton.  The City of Brampton presented the MAS with a Certificate of Appreciation for conducting Astronomy Day.

Roy Swanson gave a talk about objects to see in the sky at present including Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann.

Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to M.A.S. meeting reports page
Mississauga Astronomical Society