Meteorology Professor James Koermer, Assistant Professor Lourdes Aviles, Information Technologist Brendon Hoch and senior meteorology major Richard Giard joined the festivities at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, N.H., for “Spacetacular Saturday” on May 7, 2005.

One of the planetarium’s biggest events of the year, “Spacetacular Saturday” presents many science exhibits in addition to their regular displays. The PSU contingent set up a portable surface weather station and radiosonde unit, and launched two balloons that carried radiosondes (instrument packages) to over 70,000 feet in altitude. These instruments transmit temperature, humidity, pressure and wind data down to receiving equipment with real time displays on a laptop computer. —Kristin Proulx Jarvis