Maine Festival: 2025 Dates TBD

In 1987 John Meader founded Northern Stars Planetarium. He is a Fellow of both the International Planetarium Society and the Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society, the Archivist/Historian of the Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society, and a founding member of Dark Sky Maine, a non-profit that promotes Maine’s dark sky heritage through sensible lighting and education. He serves on the board of the Friends of the L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley, Maine and is a Registered Maine Guide.

Potential programs: Nightly dark sky tours either outside or virtually, Astrophotography, sky-lore storytelling. Learn to identify planets, constellations and learn about stars. Learn more about Dark Sky conservation.

Serena Sanborn is a Maine Master Naturalist and has been a science communicator and presenter for Dark Sky Maine, Katahdin Woods and Waters, the LC Bates Museum, and many more. She works as the Education and Outreach Manager for Waterville Creates where she combines art and science learning for all ages.

Potential program topics: Owls, Bats, Amphibians of Maine, Moths of Maine, Umwelt (the sensory world of animals), Fireflies, Nature Journals, and Art programs.

Shawn Laatsch currently is the director of the Versant Power Astronomy Center and Jordan Planetarium at the University of Maine (formerly known as Emera Astronomy Center). As center director he oversees all planetarium and observatory operations. Shawn has a passion for cultural and historical astronomy and sharing the wonders of the universe with people of all ages.

Potential presentations: Nightly stargazing tours both outside or virtually. Learn to find the planets, identify constellations, and more!

Ben Cosgrove is a traveling composer-performer whose music explores themes of landscape, place, and environment. His fourth studio album, The Trouble With Wilderness, an evocation of various expressions of nature and wildness within the built environment, was released in 2021 and has been called "beautiful and fascinating" (The Maine Edge), "deeply impressive" (Independent Clauses) and "immediately evocative and fully arresting... brim[ming] with technical mastery and emotional capital" (Seven Days). His nonfiction about place and landscape has appeared in Orion, Taproot, Northern Woodlands, Appalachia, and other publications.