2 sky shows: The Blue Angels and the Big Dipper

On rainy days, you can still find blue skies and twinkling stars on Long Island - virtually speaking, that is.

The night sky stars in a new show at the Vanderbilt Planetarium in Centerport. And blue skies are the backdrop for a new Cradle of Aviation attraction featuring the U.S. Navy Blue Angels - those daredevils regularly seen in the Jones Beach Memorial Day air show.

Fly with the Blue Angels

TYPE OF SHOW Film-based motion simulator

WHEN | WHERE X-Ride Theater at the Cradle of Aviation, Museum Row, East Garden City

INFO 516-572-4012, cradleofaviation.org

COST $14 ($12 ages 2-12) unlimited rides (includes museum admission)

DURATION About 10 minutes, including the actual 4 ½-minute ride. Runs continuously throughout the day.

WHAT TO EXPECT Fasten your seat belt - you're in for a bumpy thrill ride with the Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron. The ride puts you in the cockpit of a Blue Angels Boeing F/A-18 Hornet Strike Fighter. The ride was produced by SimEx-Iwerks, the same company that has created attractions for Universal Studios and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

After a short-film intro, a door automatically opens to a 30-seat auditorium, which doubles as the cockpit. At the front of the room is a 20 feet by 8 feet screen. After a bumpy takeoff, and some stunt flying over land and sea, you land safely on the runway. Tense moment: When the Angels fly in tight formation, you will marvel at the skill of the Navy pilots.

Coleen Fowler, 46, of Ridge, experienced the ride on a recent school holiday with her children, Kate, 5, and Ben, 9.

"It was very realistic," Fowler says. She especially liked when the video simulated the Blue Angels flying "so fast and close to the ground."

Ben was still impressed on his fourth ride that day, and simply said, "It's cool."

ALSO TRY The Cradle's Extreme Log Ride, an animated 10-minute trip on a log flume through a South American mountain range. It's also free with admission.

Night Lights

TYPE OF SHOW Planetarium sky show

WHEN | WHERE 2 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and some holidays, Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum & Planetarium, Centerport

INFO 631-854-5579, vanderbiltmuseum.org

COST $12 ($6 younger than 12), includes natural history exhibits

DURATION 35 minutes

WHAT TO EXPECT Known for its laser light extravaganzas featuring Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd song catalogs, the planetarium added this new educational "sky show" in early September - just in time for the middle school crowd. Dave Bush, the astronomy educator, called Night Lights a "classic slide-based planetarium show."

The 238-seat sky theater's futuristic-looking GOTO star projector creates the illusion of a multitude of stars on the 60-foot dome ceiling. Night Lights focuses on the effect of light and air pollution on stargazing, especially in developed suburban and urban areas.

At a recent show, the darkened theater was full of the majesty and mystery of the nighttime sky, and constellations such as the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia.

Katie Osterman, 18, a college student from Massapequa Park, attended a preview with Edwin Maldonado, 19, of Massapequa. "I like it because it's what I've been learning in astronomy right now," Osterman says. "It shows all the constellations."