Artist Jon Lomberg

JON LOMBERG
ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL LECTURES

1. MY WORK WITH CARL SAGAN
   

   25 years of collaboration between an artist and the best-known astonomer of the 20th Century. Included are works from COSMOS, CONTACT, Nuclear Winter, and the Voyager Golden Record.

2. INSIGNIFICANCE
   

   Feeling overwhelmed by the Cosmos? Find out how significant you really are! Part astronomy, part motivational lecture, this talk takes listeners on a tour of this and other Universes and puts human life in perspective — a cosmic perspective.

3. THE GALAXY GARDEN
   

   A new way of visualizing the Universe, in a living model of our galaxy made with flowering plants. This is the world’s fist and only large-scale explorable model of the Milky Way Galaxy and combines science and art in a unique living display.

4. MESSAGES TO MARS
   

   Jon Lomberg has the unique position of Earth’s most widely exhib-ited artist. Four of his works are carried aboard NASA spacecraft now on Mars, and each contains a message from contemporary humans to humans of the future inhabiting Mars.

5. A MESSAGE FROM EARTH: THE VOYAGER GOLDEN RECORD
   

   Jon Lomberg was Design Director of this now legendary project.
   His cover design for the Record and the portrait of humanity it contains will last a thousand million years, longer than any other artwork of Man. Listeners have the rare opportunity of hearing the story of this Record from one of its creators.

6. MY LITTLE ASTEROID
   

   In 1998 Jon Lomberg was singularly honored by the International Astronautical Union that formerly named Asteroid Lomberg in honor of the artist’s contributions to public understanding of astronomy. Asteroids have played and will play important roles in the history of Earth — from the im-pact that killed the dinosaurs to potential civilizations- destroying impacts of the future.
   Will Asteroid Lomberg wipe out humanity?

7. ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?
   

   Lecturer Jon Lomberg offers his opinion about the existence of life beyond the Earth. You give your opinion in an open ended discussion format. Tell us about the UFO you saw!

8. WARNING THE FUTURE
   

   The U.S. Department of Energy asked Jon Lomberg to help design a warning marker for nuclear waste that would last 10,000 years. How does one communicate over such a vast stretch of time?

9. THE DREADED JOLLY ROGER
   

   The skull and crossbones is one of the most widespread symbols ever devised. For his work on a nuclear waste marker, Jon Lomberg un-earthed the history of this fascinating symbol and its connection to pirates, Catholicism, and Hells Angels.

10. FIVE FASCINATING FACTOIDS.
    

    Just for fun, some amazing tales you will be eager to share with friends.

DESTINATION SPECIFIC LECTURES

11. STARS OF THE ____________ [ANY ITINERARY; A CUSTOMIZED LECTURE ABOUT THE SKIES OF THE LOCATION]
    

    A description by your location stargazer of the glorious celestial sights we'll see. Learn how to view the legendary-and-unforgettable-green flash.

Watch Jon Lomberg on YouTube

PACIFIC OCEAN

12. CAPTAIN COOK
    

    The story of one of the most remarkable sailors of all time, whose explorations brought the Pacific Islands to the consciousness of Europe.

13. THE POLYNESIAN STARGAZERS
    

    Polynesians were the boldest seafarers our planet has ever known, sailing flimsy canoes thousands of miles, staking their lives on accurate point to point celestial navigation.

14. RELIABLE MAGIC: ASTRONOMY OF PACIFIC PEOPLE
    

    From the Inuit in Alaska to the Australian Aborigines, Pacific cultures have created their own myths about the skies, and used them in wayfinding and timekeeping. Tongans, Tahitians, Japanese, Hawaiians, Chinese, and Easter Islanders are all a part of the mosaic of cultures that lived under Pacific skies.

SOUTH AFRICA AND INDIAN OCEAN

15. FOLLOWING THE STARS OF SINBAD
    

    The stars still bear the names they were given by the Arab astrono-mers a thousand years ago. Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran and others showed the great Arab explorers the route to Asia and the Pacific.

16. CAPE TOWN AND THE TRANSIT OF VENUS
    

    In 1761, Cape Town welcomed the famous duo of Mason and Dixon, who first worked together on this project, that also involved Captain Cook’s Tahiti voyage, to determine the distance of the Sun.

EUROPE AND MEDITERRANEAN

17. THE MUSE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
    

    From the prehistoric cave paintings of the Pleistocene era to modern masters like Matisse, Picasso, Braque and Dufy, artists have been inspired by the natural beauty of Southern France. An eclectic tour through art created over 20,000 years in this region, and how some of the principles behind that art have been used by Jon Lomberg in creating monuments for the next 20,000 years.

18. THE WINE DARK SEA
    

    Homer called the Aegean the “wine-dark sea”. Since ancient times these waters and the cities along the Greek and Turkish coasts have seen saga after saga, from the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus, to the exploits of Xenophon and Alexander the Great.

19. THE CRADLE OF MODERN THOUGHT
    

    Democritus of Abdera once said “I would rather understand one cause than be King of Persia”. The civilization of ancient Greece provided the origin of our science, philosophy, and art. COSMOS is the Greek word for order, and it was the Greeks who first conceived of the universe in anything like a modern conception. This lecture will introduce you to some of the great minds of antiquity who lived and worked in the regions through which we are sailing - whose brilliant legacy is important to this very day, inspiring scientists and artists alike. The lecturer will also show a re-creation of the legendary Alexandrian Library, which he designed for the classic TV series COSMOS.

20. THE NORTH EUROPEAN STARGAZERS
    

    North Europe has given us some of the greatest names in the his-tory of astronomy. The work of Tycho Brahe, Nikolaus Copernicus and
    Johannes Kepler helped shaped the modern view of the Universe.

CARIBBEAN

21. THE APOCOLYPSE OF THE MAYANS
    

    The Mayan civilization was based on their complex and sophisticated observation of the skies. Their remarkable achievements in the calendar were not matched until modern times. What caused their obsession with astronomy?
    When two brilliant comets appeared in 1518, their coming was taken as a premonition of disaster-- a prophecy that was fulfilled one year later by the coming of there Spanish conquistadors. But this area witnessed a far greater disaster 65 million years earlier: the collision of a comet that al-most destroyed life on Earth. The remains of that impact has recently been discovered in Belize and in the ocean off the Yucatan peninsula.

22. THE DREADED JOLLY ROGER
    

    The skull and crossbones are one of the most widespread symbols ever devised. For his work on a nuclear waste marker, Jon Lomberg unearthed the history of this fascinating symbol and its connection to pirates, Catholicism, and Hells Angels.

Contact us