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No. 18 Vol. 8
www.mypaperonline.com
August 2022
Denville Astronomer Obsessed with the Lives of the Stars (and Nebulas, and Galaxies)
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By Alexander Rivero evin Conod wants you to know that what you think of as “outer space” really isn’t as “outer” as you might assume. “When people visit the planetarium,” he says, “we try to get them to understand that there’s a lot going on out there beyond our atmosphere, and that all of that activity is not as ‘far away’ as they might feel.” The planetarium in question, of course, is the Longo Planetarium, a state-of-the-art portal into the cosmos located at the County College of Morris (CCM) in Randolph. Conod teaches astronomy at CCM, a subject he is quick to assure us has immediate effects on our everyday lives. “The things that occur beyond the realm of our atmosphere have a very real impact on our daily lives,” he says, “and it’s a shame that modern society is so disconnected from that reality as to think that these things occur in some sort of vacuum, separate from our own lives.” Central to Conod’s fascination with the infinite nature of the unknown universe is the fact that outer space, as it relates to us, is only about 50 miles away, straight up through our atmosphere. “Many of us live closer to space than to our own relatives,” says Conod. Conod’s interest in outer space traces its roots back to when he was a young boy growing up in Fair Lawn. He says he was fortunate enough to have a planetarium in his school district back then, and still recalls his first exposure to it in the third grade. “It was an absolutely magical experience, mindaltering,” he recalls. “I still remember that first time looking up and losing myself in the sheer possibility of it all. I was lucky enough to come back on various field trips after that, each of which added to the initial experience.” He graduated from Stony Brook University in Long Island with a degree in astronomy, and found a parttime position at the Newark Museum’s planetarium right out of college. Wave upon wave of kids, parents, grandparents, and groups of all sizes would fill the museum each day, especially during the weekends, and Conod helped the staff express the otherwise inexpressible mystery of the cosmos to an audience hungry for it. It was a job he held for 30 years, before
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having to depart as a result of the COVID-19 closures. “It was a great run,” Conod says in reference to his time at the Newark Museum. “I miss being under the dome.” Out looking for work, he remembered that CCM had its own planetarium and decided to apply. “I came across the right people over at CCM, and before I knew it, I was helping out with the planetarium on a daily basis while they were doing some repairs.” Before long, he started teaching an astronomy course, and when the planetarium was finally ready to receive the public once again, he took his classes to it as often as he could. It is a difficult task to get Conod to identify what fascinates him most of outer space. The question itself prompts him to let out an audible sigh, and he laughs at what he describes as the impossibility of reducing his wonder to a neat, itemized list of categories. continued on page 4
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