In an interview with The New York Daily Mirror in 1964, Mr. Chamberlain said a theatrical touch was essential.
“Give the audience 40 minutes of astronomy, and there would be no audience,’’ he said. “It has to be a combination of science and showmanship. If there’s a sunrise, we furnish appropriate sunrise music.’’
Mr. Chamberlain was one of the first scientists to organize cruises to distant destinations for planetariums and other groups, so people could witness heavenly events such as eclipses and comets.
Joseph Miles Chamberlain was born in Peoria and remained there after graduating from high school to enroll at Bradley University. He left college during World War II to become a cadet at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He then served on transport ships in the Atlantic and the Pacific before returning to Bradley to finish a second bachelor’s degree. To finance his education, he taught high school part time and worked in a cigar store.
Returning to New York, he taught nautical science at the Merchant Marine Academy and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Teachers College of Columbia University, concentrating on meteorology and astronomy. He gave lectures at the Hayden Planetarium, averaging five a week from 1950 to 1952.
The Hayden hired him as an assistant curator in 1952. He rose through the ranks to become its chairman in 1956 and an assistant director of the American Museum of Natural History, Hayden’s parent, in 1964.
A high point of his tenure was in 1960, when he bought a powerful new projector for the planetarium’s famous star show. It replaced one that was wearing out and was equipped to display more arcane celestial phenomena.
Mr. Chamberlain was frequently quoted in the New York press on matters such as eclipses, the change of seasons, and the visibility of particular planets.
