GOINGS ON : SANTA BARBARA : Stargazers Only : Two discussions will focus on the heavens at the Museum of Natural History and planetarium.

If you’re one of those astro-novices who still thinks the brighter a star is the closer it is, look up and listen up.

“You can’t tell by looking at the sky,” said Fred Marshak, an astronomy teacher at Santa Barbara City College, referring to distance. “It’s like people who say, ‘Isn’t that airplane high, or low,’ when they see blinking lights. They have no idea how high it is.”

Marshak will clear up that myth and any other misconceptions of the typical stargazer during his Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History presentation called “Under the Summer Sky.” The hourlong discussion, which combines a planetarium show with hands-on use of the telescope, will run through August, changing periodically (as often as the summer sky changes).

So what will be going on up there over the next few months?

“Saturn is visible during the early and middle part of the summer and Mars will be dominant in the latter part,” he said. “We’ll also have a couple of good meteor showers.”

Marshak will not only show people what to look for, but he’ll go into some of the legends behind what they’re looking at.

“During the summer we use the Big Dipper as the home base for the constellations,” Marshak said. “In American Indian mythology, the bear is the head of the Dipper and the three stars in the handle are the Indians who chase it around the sky.”

Marshak said the story was told to explain how leaves changed color in autumn. “As the Indians catch the bear, the red and yellow leaves are the roasting of the bear.”

By now he is used to looking heavenward but Marshak said he is still at times overwhelmed by the size of the universe, and can completely sympathize with anyone else who feels the same.

“I think what really gets to people most of the time is the vast distance of things,” he said. “The idea is when you’re looking at the stars you’re looking back in time. You’re really not seeing the present, you’re seeing what was a number of years ago. We’re speaking billions of years. I can use the words, but it still boggles my mind.”

If that’s not enough to give you a case of galloping agoraphobia, Ernest Underhay, the Gladwin Planetarium astronomer/lecturer, will present “A Guide to the Stars of Summer.”

“We’ll talk about what you can see in the night sky with your own eyes. From our back yards that’s not a whole heck of a lot,” he said, adding that from darker locales such as Ojai you can see the Milky Way as a softly growing arc. “The trick is to find a place dark enough.”

“A Guide to the Stars of Summer” shows will be given Saturdays at 3 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. through the end of June. Admission is $3 (adults), $2 (seniors and children ages 12-17) and $1 (children under 12). Call 682-4711.

* THE DETAILS: “Under the Summer Sky” presentations will be given each Saturday through August, beginning at 8 p.m in the museum’s Gladwin Planetarium. Admission is $3 (adults) and $1.50 (children under 12). Call 682-3224.