Looking Down - Kevin Schindler's Time as Astronomer-In-Residence

Behind the Scenery

Explore the parallels of time between the stars and rock formations at Grand Canyon with May 2023 Astronomer-In-Residence, Kevin Schindler. Kevin is the Historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, where he’s worked for 28 years. Tune into this where Kevin shares about his time as Grand Canyon’s Astronomer-In-Residence, his insights on the night sky, and his experience retracing the steps of the Apollo 11 astronauts who trained at Grand Canyon. Learn more about Kevin's work at lowell.edu

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Dave: Hey, this is Dave. Elle: And this is Elle. Dave: We sat down with Kevin Schindler, the Public Information Officer and Historian at Lowell Observatory, to chat about his time as an Astronomer-In-Residence, and to learn more about the night sky. Elle: While Dave had the chance to sit down with him in person, I phoned in from the North Rim. Please forgive our audio quality, we tried. Oh, that was the most awkward little laugh. *laughing* Elle: In this episode, we'll be looking down on Kevin's experiences as an Astronomer-In-Residence within the Canyon. Kevin: My name is Kevin Schindler, and I'm the Historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, and I've been at Lowell for 28 years. Early on in my career, I was in the public program at Lowell, so I started as a tour guide, then ended up managing the program for a dozen years or something like that. And now I'm the Historian, and so I try to document the history, which is not just back then, but now, it's kind of for me it's not history and current, it's the heritage that we've been doing for a long time. So, the heritage of research. So, I do with that I write articles and some books, and give talks, and kind of help with planning exhibits and that sort of thing. And then for the Public Information Officer, PIO, that's the other half of what I do and that's promoting the observatory. So that's largely the media relations, and so if we have a science story or we're doing something special for our public program, or there's an unusual or interesting astronomical event, like we have eclipses coming up so and so I'll do press releases and media alerts, set up interviews with our staff, host tours with media personnel so that people from around the world coming like to check out Northern Arizona, they'll go to the Grand Canyon, to here in Flagstaff, and so we'll facilitate tours up here at the observatory promoting everything so they'll write about it and let people know. Dave: You were a former Astronomer-In-Residence as well. Kevin: Right, I served as Astronomer-In-Residence in May of 2023, and that was just a spectacular experience. Dave: What drew you into the program and why did you apply for the program? Kevin: Well, I've worked with uh Raider Lane, the Dark Sky Ranger and other folks at Grand Canyon over the past - gosh, it's been years now - doing some research, retracing where the Apollo astronauts trained in 1960s, but also other things like, I mean like Bucky O'Neill has always been an interest of mine, Theodore Roosevelt’s role in Grand Canyon National Park, which is a really interesting, politically charged sometimes, topic. And so those were besides, just the dark skies, and I I've been to star parties for years, the Grand Canyon Star Party. So, it's kind of a combination of, you know, working with folks up there, and working on some projects here and there. But the reason I applied was the opportunity to be up there for a full month and really zoom in on this, you know, rephotographing where the astronauts trained because we have a lot of photographs from NASA and the US Geological Survey, they trained to pinpoint where those pictures were taken. It's a lot of fun and it can be frustrating, but it's fun and it means hiking into the Canyon and you know, at one point I was walking back and forth, I think about a half a mile, and just below O'Neil Butte, going back and forth about a half a mile, trying to line up this one rock that was split along the trail and I could see a little bit of the background that wasn't changing much. So, it's just a really fun project, but that's the reason I applied was to try to really spend more time with that. Dave: It sounds like a really interesting project, yeah. Kevin: And then also you know it was kind of a combination of that was the main project, it was rephotographing, but also giving daytime programs on some non-astronomy history and then doing you know star parties at night. I mean what a cool place. And so, when I was there, I did something like 30 programs for the month. Which were a combination of like from a walking tour of the cemetery, a history tour, to talking about Bucky O'Neill and Brighty the Burrow, which is a really fascinating story. And then, of course, the astronauts and the night sky, there's so many different things to do. I mean, you could spend the rest of your life working on so many projects there. Dave: Yeah, I think that's maybe a little bit different about your programming while you were there, was that you did do some daytime stuff. What was your favorite part of your experience? Kevin: I think the people. Because like you mentioned, this is a program with the Grand Canyon National Park supported by the Grand Canyon Conservancy, the financial arm of the National Park, as it were. And it was, it was so fun to be able to get to know a whole cadre of different people that are really passionate about the same thing. I work at Lowell. You guys work at the Grand Canyon, but we're all passionate about the universe around us and preserving it and exploring it and sharing it with others, and the inspiration that comes. So, I think that was the biggest thing, whether it was talking to visitors and showing them views through the telescope for the first time, which is always a thrill for me, or working with the Grand Canyon Conservancy staff. You know they; I was living at Verkamp's store and down below or upstairs and down below is the store and the visitor center. But the staff rotates every day among several different stores in the park. And so, I got to know just about everybody on the retail staff. And then the rest of the team like Clover Morrell and others that work in the office, it was just, it was just great, and you like through this, I got to know you and go to the North Rim and, you know, work with a lot of people I hadn't before. So, like I think that, I mean there's the obvious things of the Canyon. I mean I I've been to the Canyon a lot, but living there is a different experience, but really the biggest thing was the people and sharing the excitement. Elle: Kevin, what would you say was the most surprising part of that experience? Kevin: I think probably that even though I've been to the Grand Canyon a bunch of times and hiked down and done rim to river back when I was younger, and you know, not, you know, maybe not as smart or not, I was in better shape. Like I think, of all that, really still being there for a month, living there, just how connected you are to the universe. I mean, every time I go, my wife and I go, we want to as we're driving back home, we say “okay, let's plan our next trip.” But you know, we've been there for a few days, a week maybe, but being there for a month where during the daytime, you look down and you see these layers of rock, the time that's represented, and at nighttime you look up and you're looking back in time also it's just, you know, you're looking at starlight. I think, I'm not sure - I expected that, but not to that level where I really felt just really so connected to it. I think that was probably the biggest thing because I thought, okay, I'm going to be here for the month, this is going to be great. I'll just do, it'll be more of what I felt before, but it was a new experience. It was just, it was like I was in an alien place because I was there day and night. It wasn't just visiting there. Elle: How did you find those spots to recreate the photos? Kevin: So, we have, we have these photographs from NASA and the US Geological Survey, and there's probably, I don't know, a few dozen of them and some of them, from my experience hiking, they're pretty obvious. Like O'Neill Butte, you know, you see it standing in the background, it’s obvious. And some of the places I was kind of familiar with. Others, I talked to people a lot more familiar with the Grand Canyon than me, Dennis Foster is a local, he lives in Flagstaff, but he's very familiar with Grand Canyon, and Bill Farris and some others that we're able to pinpoint it. Carl Bowman, who’s another expert on the Canyon. So, they helped me kind of narrow down where some of these things were. And then in other cases, it was just you know, I knew, you know there are like a bunch of them are along the South Kaibab Trail, somewhere along there. There, there are a couple that I just bumbled upon, and when I saw them, I thought, my gosh, how did I miss this before? So, it's kind of a combination, of a you know, going on a sleuthing expedition. So, every time I found one, it's really kind of satisfying. Dave: What do you think your favorite one was? Is there a particular spot that you really liked trying to pinpoint? Kevin: Oh, gosh. I'm not sure if I have a favorite one like there's there are several pictures of Neil Armstrong and one of him at the Fossil Fern Exhibit, and I like that one because my background is paleontology. And so, it ties together paleontology and of course the rocks, the Grand Canyon, and Neil Armstrong, who, like me, was from Ohio. And so, I voice, you know, he's one of my favorite astronauts, partly because that besides, you know, obviously what he did and so that one has a lot of personal meaning. Another one down, it's Havasupai Gardens, where the astronauts had hiked up then got mules there, and there's a picture of one of the mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper on a mule. And so, this one wasn't too hard to find a spot just right by the mule paddock, as it were. But several years ago, I wanted to recreate that shot when I first started doing this and so there was a wrangler there, her name is Tex Parker, and she was riding, and I asked her if she'd pose for a picture. I showed it to her, and she said “sure,” and she did this spectacular pose and just this cute smile and everything, and then after we were done, you know, I showed that picture in different programs I've done. But when I did the Astronomer-In-Residence, I told her I wanted to rephotograph it because her head was cocked once to the left instead of the right. It was really almost like an inside joke because it wasn't that big a deal, but we arranged a time to meet down there and so she brought her wagon train down and she reposed, and she had been practicing. And so, she not only got the head tilted the right way but had the same look on her face. So that was fun because that's something that led to a long-lasting friendship now that we just kind of stumbled on. So that's, I'm getting into a long answer, but those are a couple of the ones that are kind of fun. My gosh, there's, again it involves the people, like down at Phantom Ranch trying to figure out where this one picture was taken, and Sjors I don't remember his last name, but he's a legend in in the Grand Canyon, he volunteered there for 30 years and I showed this to him and he said, oh, that's looks like cabin eight, or I think it was cabin eight. And we walked over there and sure enough, you know, the background rocks and everything have lined up perfectly. And another personal thing with that is that I was when, I had got this lined up that trip, I was giving a talk that night about the astronauts. And so earlier that day, I went back to rephotograph the spot right by the cabin and the people who were staying in the cabin, there's somebody there that were outside. So, I showed this picture and said, hey, you're staying in this cabin, look at this, these astronauts are there, and that's pretty neat. And hey, I’m doing the program tonight, come on over. So, I give the program that and I noticed this one guy looking at me like closer than everybody else. It was kind of odd, and afterwards he came up and said, “Kevin, do you remember me?” And it was a guy I went to college with, he was in my class, and we haven't seen each other in well, and I won’t divulge how long it's been since I was in college, but it was like 3 decades plus. And, Ed White, and of all the things he said every year, he and his friends rent a cabin at the bottom and hike down and stay a couple of nights, and that happened to be the weekend. And so, we reconnected after all these years because of rephotographing, you know the spot, so that that had a lot of personal connection, also. So yeah, I think it just you know, I think to me Grand Canyon is like Lowell Observatory in a lot of ways, that people go to either place and are stunned and they're great experiences, but it's the people working there that interpret and explain and inspire that that put it all in context, and that's what makes Lowell Observatory and the Grand Canyon so spectacular. It's one thing to see them, which is great, but having - whether it's Rangers at Grand Canyon or educators at Lowell - it's having it explained and put in context, that you know, that those are always the best comments we get from people of so and so really helped me see, it or really explained it well. And so that's something I think, one of many things the Canyon and Lowell have in common, you know something exciting for people to see, but also the staff to get people excited about it. Dave: During your experience, you know, we talked about staff and thing, what was the most impactful thing you learned from the Canyon itself? Kevin: I think, I'm not sure if you would say I learned it, but I think so, but it really impacted me by living there and seeing what I was saying before about time, and how we're looking down at the rocks are up in the sky, but the similarities with them. You know, the rocks, you look, they appear to be so stable layer after layer that have been there a long time. The same thing when you look up the sky at night. Every night the Big Dipper is rising, you know, with all, it looks the same. You know the sun rises every day very predictable. But if you look at either one of them closely, you see that beneath that stability is chaos. Like you go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the Vishnu basement rocks that are contorted and twisted around. Or if you look closely at the sun and it's, you know, 27,000,000 degrees and these thermonuclear reactions going on that, I just really saw so much similarity in, you know, we're looking back in time in different ways, but they both they both have a lot in common. I think that that really stood out to me more than anything. One thing that I want to do is you know, you look at different layers of the rocks and when they were laid down and then comparing that to something in space whose life started traveling to us at the same time, those rocks were laid down. So, you know, there's a couple million light years away, for instance. Now the rocks in the Canyon were laid down hundreds of millions and longer ago. And so, you look at things in space that are that age, you know, like a distant Galaxy or whatever and it's neat to think that the light that is touching my eye now started traveling when there was no Grand Canyon, these rocks were being laid down. It's magnificent to think of the time it takes for things to happen in the universe. And that's what I think you know, I mean you look at the Grand Canyon, you know you see these layers of rocks and you're looking back in time, but the being, standing on the edge like at sunset and seeing the depth of the Canyon and the hundreds of millions of years represented, and then at the same time, you see stars starting to come out and think. You're, again, you're looking back in time at that light. It was just really such a visceral experience. Elle: It seems like your geology and astronomy interests lined up pretty well on this residency, then. Can you tell us a little more about that? Kevin: Yeah, my background is in geology. I went to College in Ohio, Marietta College, and I focused on paleontology, and I worked at a museum in Florida, the Florida Museum of Natural History, for six years. And so that's always been a love of mine, soft rocks for fossils, and you know the Grand Canyon, that's mostly what it is. It's layer upon layer of fossiliferous rock of one sort or another. And again, it's looking back in time that's just fascinating. I mean, I'm a, I'm a historian and so, you know, at Lowell Observatory, I look back in time in some ways, decades or 100 years at the operations of the observatory are things that happened. But I'm also looking back in time at, you know, when the period of heavy bombardment on the moon, you know, billions of years ago. Or looking back at Jupiter, you know, millions of years ago, but then the Grand Canyon, looking back, hundreds of millions of years, it's all it's all looking back in time and it's just, it's such a neat connection for me. Dave: When you visited us, with us at North Rim, you talked about your upcoming book, and I was really curious about how the progress was going, and what that would look like, and maybe a little bit of an overview of what’s going to be in it. Kevin: Sure, sure! So, the book is called, it's a, it's a series called Past and Present, put out by History Press/Arcadia press, it’s the same thing, essentially. And so, it's a series where they do these past, it's a past and present series that focuses, usually on communities, so it's historic pictures and then the modern counterpart taking the same place; rephotography. And so, my publisher asked if I would do something for Flagstaff, which I might still want to do, but I thought, “how about Grand Canyon?” Because it would be neat to kind of document, you know, what it was like 50 years, 100 years ago to what it looks like today? You know the like, where visitors go to hotels, and trails, and visitor centers and stuff like that. So that's what this is, and it comes out January 1st and it's something like, I don't know 160 images. Again, then and now. So, the cover has a picture of Lookout Studio taken about 100 years ago and then what it looks like now. And so that again was, it was fun and during my time as the resident astronomer, I worked on that some specifically on the astronomy related stuff. So, we were rephotographing the astronauts, but also there are a couple of times like when I visited you at the North Rim, we photographed the Brighty statue. Dave: Right. Kevin: So, I actually had to go back and rephotograph again because the angle. But it turns out that the base, the statue has been moved and so you can't recreate it exactly, it's been moved several feet from the pictures that I have. But anyway, so there's some like that that we're that we're fun to get when I was up there. So yeah, that comes out January 1st and it's kind of fun for me because I've done seven or eight books and mostly about astronomy and astronomy history, but to do one specifically about the Grand Canyon is pretty neat. And so, I'm excited about that. Dave: It's interesting too, because when you think of all these buildings, I'm always like, well, it's historic preservation, they should be exactly the same. But I'm sure that that's just not true. Kevin: Oh yeah, that's right. And then you say exactly the same when because you like, building one at the Canyon that was originally the administration building, there's a picture we have that's in in the book and it has the building as it was originally, but they expanded it and now it has, you know, it's got the garage, it's got another wing. And I think that, you know, at the Grand Canyon, that was typical that buildings, if it went out of use for one thing, it was repurposed or something else. So, there's a lot of buildings that change because they were repurposed. And so that, you know, there is a on the North Rim, there's a, it was a mule paddock that's not being used anymore. But then there is there's a place that at the South rim, that was, I think it was at one time, it was a next stage administration building, now it's the law enforcement building. And so, there's a lot of things that, they get repurposed, so they're going to get modified a little bit. Elle: Kevin, where did you get the inspiration to start recreating all of these photos, you know, of people and buildings, just things that have changed and have stayed the same? Kevin: Well, I you know, when we talked with the publisher and talked about doing something with Flagstaff, I just happened to be going up to the Grand Canyon, and I started looking around, thinking, my gosh, there's a lot of classic buildings. There are so many historic landmark buildings up there, and I knew that there were, you know, the Grand Canyon Museum Collection is just a treasure trove. And so I went and checked that out and talked to the great people there, Kim and Colleen, and they shared with me that their the collections are just vast. And I realized that between mostly pictures there, are a couple from the National Archives and, The Library of Congress National Archives, those are all open-source places as well as Grand Canyon Museum collections. And so, I found that there was a great resource for historic pictures and it kind of grew from there. But it was fun doing it because, you know, like I went to the North Rim and Dave, like we talked there, and we did a bunch of pictures, and it's not really until you get back and can really look at them on the computer, get them full size. Then, I went back and redid several because you know the angle wasn't quite right or because the sun you know was really shadowed in one and you could play with the image a little bit, but it had to be redone. So, there is one, there's an overlook down below the lodge at the North Rim and there's a little bridge that goes to it and so it was really, it was really neat, but I had to redo that in a slightly different angle. And you can't recreate the exact angle because you would be on the edge of the rock that drops down several hundred feet. And that wasn't going to happen. Plus, you know, I want to, you know, the last thing I want to do is be a dummy, that you know went too far and then Grand Canyon has another statistic on their hand because this knucklehead was trying to get a picture. So yeah. Elle: If you had to describe your residency as a color, what color would it be and why? Kevin: Um probably, oh gosh, ask me tomorrow and it might be different. But I would right now, I'd probably say golden, if golden's a color. Elle: I think it’s a color Kevin: But because the most dramatic time of the day to me was sunset and the color; I mean you get these golden red colors, but just the rays of the sun. And to me it was, again, connecting the sky and the land you have the sun setting and just, you know, that afternoon light you get, and I think it would be that, that's what sticks with me the most. I mean obviously there are the color of the rocks that stand out and change depending on the lighting and cloud cover and such, but golden really sticks out to me I guess. And it kind of connects, I think one of the of the most fun nights, and one that sticks with me is, it was late afternoon and we set up a couple of telescopes on the top of the of the John Wesley Powell monument. And so, we had a solar telescope looking at the setting sun and then another telescope looking at the moon rising, it was around full moon. And to see them both at the same time, and it's always, I don't know, it was a day or two short of a full moon, but to see them both at the same time with the golden rays of the sun, and then by the way, there's the moon and standing on the monument to John Wesley Powell, who really kicked off the exploration of the Grand Canyon and has strong connections to the moon. And you know, it was just, it was just beautiful. So, I think the color maybe because of that singular moment of being on top of the monument with the telescopes was it was just so striking that that will stick with me for a long time. Elle: Thanks for joining us for another behind the Scenery Podcast episode. Care to learn more from Kevin Schindler? Head over to our second episode looking up to hear more from Kevin, Dave, and myself about some hot tips and techniques to access the night sky. We'd like to thank Kevin and the whole team at Lowell Observatory located in Flagstaff, AZ, for hosting us and taking the time to chat with us. We hope to have more programming with Kevin and the rest of his crew in the future. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.