SR 155: On the Launch Pad with Christian Ready

This week I had a blast chatting with Launch Pad Astronomy host Christian Ready. Christian surprised me by bringing a slab of HIS favorite cheese to the show and we had an impromptu cheese tasting! (Can you guess what cheese Christian brought?)

This week's Dom's Cheese of the week was Gjetost, a traditional Norwegian cheese made with caramelized goat's milk. It has a fudge-like texture with salted caramel flavors: https://domscheese.com/product/gjetost/

Christian is an astronomer at Towson University where he also serves as planetarium director. He has spent much of his life in awe of the universe. In fact, he first worked professionally in the field of Astronomy at the tender age of 13 when he started working at the Sproul Observatory at Swarthmore College near his home. Initially, Christian measured the positions of stars on hundreds of photographic plates, but he later moved on to taking observations with the 24-inch refractor.

During his time at Sproul Observatory, Christian developed a passion for showing the public celestial objects through their telescopes during monthly open houses. On those inevitable cloudy nights, he would present slideshows when people would show up anyway.

Christian went on to earn his Bachelor of Science degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Villanova University where his passion for public outreach was reinforced as a teacher’s assistant and presenter on weekly public viewing nights.

While working at Space Telescope Science Institute, and later at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, Christian gave talks about the Hubble Space Telescope and other astronomy topics at venues ranging from schools, to community groups, to science fiction conventions. He continues to give talks to this day and has been known to make a video or two.

Christian is now an instructor at the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, where he helps teach writers, editors, filmmakers, and other creative professionals about astronomy. He views this as an opportunity to combine his loves of astronomy, teaching, and science fiction into one.

You can learn more about Christian by visiting his website (https://christianready.com/) and you can subscribe to Launch Pad Astronomy on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/christianready)

Don't forget to follow Christian on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianready/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/christianready/), and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/christianready/).

To learn more about Launch Pad Astronomy, go to https://www.launchpadworkshop.org/ . You can also follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/LaunchPadAstronomy), Twitter (https://twitter.com/LaunchPadAstro), and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/launchpadastro/).