Out of This World

The year 1966 was big in space exploration. Among other fun stuff, an unmanned Earthship made the first soft landing on the moon, and the Enterprise’s maiden voyage was documented on prime-time television. But for Miamians the biggest leap into the cosmos happened at the Miami Museum of Science when the Space Transit Planetarium was constructed out of old star stuff. Tonight’s Celestial Encounter marks the planetarium’s 40th anniversary with celestial cocktails, a buffet, auctions, live entertainment, movies, and special planetarium shows. The museum is also celebrating Jack Horkheimer’s 30th year as the Star Hustler. Well, not exactly. A few years back, when youngsters were searching for him on that newfangled thing called the Internet, they stumbled across a different kind of hustler. Even though nobody really expected to see Horkheimer sliding down the rings of Uranus wearing nothing but a Members Only jacket, we live in a pixilated world where even the slightest innuendo is shuttled off to a black hole. So the show’s title, along with Jack’s moniker, was changed to the less prismatic Star Gazer, but Horkheimer’s enthusiasm didn’t dim in the least.
Sat., Nov. 4, 7-10 p.m.