Why I love ‘docenting’ at the Rancho Mirage Observatory

I’m a volunteer docent at the Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory, giving weekly tours of the cosmos. As the Observatory approaches its sixth anniversary, I wanted to briefly share the top 10,000 things I’ve enjoyed most about being one of its many docents.

(Begin Tour Guide Voice)

“Founded in 2018, the Rancho Mirage Observatory is a rare combination of public-facing education center and research-grade astronomical facility. Our telescopes see 50 million lightyears into the universe. With them, we harvest starlight and convert it to knowledge.”

(Back to normal voice)

Pretty good docenting! OK, on to the list! Reason #1: The word docent. Sounds so important, right? Like I spend my time thoughtfully gliding through the Observatory, just being wise. I’m not wise, but I appreciate the implication.

Reason #2: It’s accessible. The events are free, and thanks to the Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory Foundation, docents don’t have to be donors.

My journey into docenthood (docentship? docentitude?) started by just filling out RMLO’s Volunteer Application Form and studying the Observatory guidebook before tours. Thankfully, no astronomy degree needed. Bringing me to…

Reason #3: Ya don’t have to be an astronomer. No disrespect to astronomers, but… sounds like alotta work. I like that the merely “celestially-curious” can be docents, too.

Reason #4: Observatory “public exploration” nights. Twice a week (Thursday and Saturday nights), the Observatory flings open its doors to let the public get an eyeful of four unique heavenly objects, from planets to stars to nebulae. Witness the majesty of our universe and its 13-billion-year cosmic ballet…

Reason #5: I got a lil badge! It says “docent” on it, cool! OK, back to the cosmic ballet…

Reason #6: The Integrated Space Theater. Projected on the underside of the Observatory’s dome is our hidden feature. Via the I.S.T., Rancho Mirage’s Observatory secretly doubles as a planetarium. It’s an Observa-tarium!

Simulate a journey into space orbital barfing.

Reason #7: Meeting new patrons on daytime tours. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday docents like myself give free 3 p.m. tours. I’ve given tours to entire first grade classrooms, city officials, literal billionaires, a bachelorette party and also many, many folks I suspect were just looking for somewhere with air conditioning.

Reason #8: A giant 700 mm telescope, controlled by a PlayStation remote. Really. The CDK700, the metaphorical “star” of this literal star show, is so powerful and so sensitive it sits atop 120,000 pounds of seismically-protected concrete.

…And it’s controlled by a video game joystick. Man, I love science.

Reasons #9 through #10,000: The people. If I can stop joking for a minute (we’ll see!), the real reasons I love being an Observatory docent are the people. From city astronomer Eric McLaughlin to observatory coordinator Annie Poy, to all the library staffers, my fellow oddball docents and every single one of the 10,000+ people that visited our Observatory this past year.

Together, we make this big sparse universe feel just a smidge smaller.

If you’d like to be a docent, there’s plenty of room in our docentdom. Visit https://www.ranchomiragelibrary.org/support-your-library/volunteer/, and I look forward to showing you how to use the PlayStation controller.

Eric Cunningham is a volunteer docent at the Rancho Mirage Library & Observatory. He has a little badge. He can be reached at cunningham.eric@gmail.com. without the risk of