Try our new video-game portal to AstroFest2020's online presentations and activities. It runs in your computer's web browser; you may also need to disable pop-up blockers while using the site (unavailable on mobile devices).
Welcome to our AstroFest 2020 Virtual World!
Click here to enter our "virtual lobby" — live now! Please give the program a moment to load.
You will need to use your computer rather than a mobile device.
Or see the more traditional program, below.
Our program includes presentations, virtual telescope viewing, demonstrations, virtual planetarium shows, and explorations of our video game virtual world we use for teaching astronomy general education classes at Penn State.
Most of the presentations and activities will remain available to the public after the event. Please browse the program sections, below, for links to presentation recordings and games.
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Since 1999, Penn State Astronomy students, faculty, and friends have been inviting the public to Davey Lab for AstroFest, a four night festival of Astronomy held concurrently with the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. AstroFest features many exciting activities, talks, and presentations, including stargazing through the telescopes on the roof of Davey Lab.
AstroFest Facebook
2020 Presentations and Activities
Recorded presentations always available.
Planetarium Show
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
Virtual Reality Tour of PSU Rocket Lab
— presentation by the McEntaffer Group at Penn State
Dark Energy: Einstein's Greatest Blunder
— presentation by Donghui Jeong
Telling the Story of Life in the Cosmos with the Space Telescope of the Future
— presentation by Rebekah Dawson
Cosmic Explosions
— presentation by Mike Siegel
Exoplanets
— presentation by Eric Ford
Planets, planets, everywhere!
— presentation by Eric Feigelson
Is Pluto a Planet?
— presentation by Chris Palma
Is There Life On Other Planets? How Do We Look For It?
— presentation by Jason Wright
Life in the Universe
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
Orbital Rocketry Using Kerbal Space Program
— presentation by Steve Kerby
Planetary Nebulae in Spiral Galaxies: Shedding some Light on Dark Matter
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
Planets, planets, everywhere!
— presentation by Eric Feigelson
Going to the Moon with the Kerbal Space Program
— presentation by Michael Rodruck
Recorded presentations always available
Scale of Solar System with toilet paper
— presentation by Rebekah Dawson
Zodiac Signs and Astronomy vs. Astrology
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
Stellarium Starlores
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
Dark Energy Song
— original song by Ariana Dove
Why Stars Twinkle
— presentation by Michael Rodruck
Meet Joe Masiero: a PSU Astro alumnus’ story
— presentation by Joe Masiero
#BlackInAstro: The Work and Experiences of Black Astronomers
— presentation by Michael Palumbo
Origin of Cosmic Web Filaments
— presentation by Joe Ninan
How to Make a Habitable Planet
— presentation by Evan Sneed
Mercedes Richards: A Great Professor and Human
— presentation by Jane Charlton
These games will run in a new browser window or tab
"Mars Surface Exploration" game
"Free Flying around the Solar System" game
"Constellations / Planetarium" game
"Particle Physics: Combining Quarks into Protons & Neutrons" game
(recorded presentations always available)
M13: Hercules Globular Cluster
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
The Ring Nebula
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
Jupiter
— presentation by Sameer
Saturn
— presentation by Kim Herrmann
M31: Andromeda Galaxy
— presentation by Amanpreet Kaur