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Inside the Adler Planetarium, Chicago
Inside the Adler Planetarium, Chicago

A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago, Illinois was the first Planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere and is the oldest in existence Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one Astronomy (from the Greek words astron (ἄστρον "star" and nomos (νόμος "law" is the scientific study Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a Position fixing technique that was devised to help sailors cross the featureless oceans without having to A dominant feature of most planetariums is the large dome-shaped projection screen onto which scenes of stars, planets and other celestial objects can be made to appear and move realistically to simulate the complex 'motions of the heavens'. A dome is a common structural element of Architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a Sphere. A star is a massive luminous ball of plasma. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the Energy on Earth A planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU is a celestial body Orbiting a Star or stellar remnant that is s are significant physical entities, associations or structures which current Science has confirmed to exist in Space. The celestial scenes can be created using a wide variety of technologies, for example precision-engineered 'star balls' that combine optical and electro-mechanical technology, slide projector, video and fulldome projector systems, and lasers. A slide projector is an opto-mechanical device to view photographic slides. Video is the technology of electronically capturing, Recording, processing storing transmitting and reconstructing a sequence of Still images Fulldome is used to refer to immersive dome-based video projection environments Whatever technologies are used, the objective is normally to link them together to provide an accurate relative motion of the sky. Typical systems can be set to display the sky at any point in time, past or present, and often to show the night sky as it would appear from any point of latitude on Earth. Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter phi ( Φ) gives the location of a place on Earth (or other planetary body north or south of the

Planetariums have become well-nigh ubiquitous, with some privately owned. A rough estimate is that in the United States there is one planetarium per 100,000 population, ranging in size from the Hayden Planetarium's 20-meter dome seating 430 people, to three-meter inflatable portable domes where children sit on the floor. |-| |-| |-| |}The Hayden Planetarium is a public Planetarium located on Central Park West, New York City, next to and organizationally part of the Such portable planetariums serve education programs outside of the permanent installations of museums and science centers. A museum is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development open to the public which acquires conserves researches communicates and exhibits the A science centre (English or science center (American is a Science museum that emphasizes a hands-on approach featuring interactive exhibits that encourage visitors

Outer wall of the new Beijing Planetarium
Outer wall of the new Beijing Planetarium

Contents

History

See also the Timeline of planetariums for specific dates and events in the historical influences on and development of planetariums. Historic Influences Development of Modern Planetariums Digital and Fulldome Video

Early

Archimedes is attributed with possessing a primitive planetarium device that could predict the movements of the Sun and the Moon and the planets. Archimedes of Syracuse ( Greek:) ( c. 287 BC – c 212 BC was a Greek mathematician, Physicist, Engineer The Sun (Sol is the Star at the center of the Solar System. The discovery of the Antikythera mechanism proved that such devices already existed during antiquity. The Antikythera mechanism (ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə an-ti-ki- theer -uh is an ancient mechanical Calculator (also described as the first known " mechanical "Ancient" redirects here For other uses see Ancient_(disambiguation. Johannes Campanus (1220-1296) described a planetarium in his Theorica Planetarum, and included instructions on how to build one. Johannes Campanus (in Italian, Giovanni Campano; also known as Campanus of Novara or similar (1220-1296 was an Italian Astrologer These devices would today usually be referred to as orreries (named for the Earl of Orrery, an Irish peer: an 18th century Earl of Orrery had one built). This article is on the mechanical device For the British peerage see Earl of Orrery. In fact, many planetariums today have what are called projection orreries, which project onto the dome a Sun with planets (usually limited to Mercury up to Saturn) going around it in something close to their correct relative periods.

The small size of typical 18th century orreries limited their impact, and towards the end of that century a number of educators attempted some larger scale simulations of the heavens. The efforts of Adam Walker (1730-1821) and his sons are noteworthy in their attempts to fuse theatrical illusions with educational aspirations. Walker's Eidouranion was the heart of his public lectures or theatrical presentations. Walker's son describes this "Elaborate Machine" as "twenty feet high, and twenty-seven in diameter: it stands vertically before the spectators, and its globes are so large, that they are distinctly seen in the most distant parts of the Theatre. Every Planet and Satellite seems suspended in space, without any support; performing their annual and diurnal revolutions without any apparent cause". Other lecturers promoted their own devices: R E Lloyd advertised his Dioastrodoxon, or Grand Transparent Orrery, and by 1825 William Kitchener was offering his Ouranologia, which was 42 feet (13 m) in diameter. These devices most probably sacrificed astronomical accuracy for crowd-pleasing spectacle and sensational and awe-provoking imagery.

The oldest, still working planetarium can be found in the Dutch town Franeker. Franeker (Frjentsjer is one of the eleven cities of Friesland and capital of the municipality of Franekeradeel. It was built by Eise Eisinga (1744-1828) in the livingroom of his house. Eise Jeltes Eisinga ( Dronrijp, 21 February 1744 - Franeker, 27 August 1828) was a Dutch amateur astronomer who built an It took Eisinga seven years to build his planetarium, which was completed in 1781.

In 1905 Oskar von Miller (1855-1934) of the Deutsches Museum in Munich commissioned updated versions of a geared orrery and planetarium from M Sendtner, and later worked with Franz Meyer, chief engineer at the Carl Zeiss optical works in Jena, on the largest mechanical planetarium ever constructed, capable of displaying both heliocentric and geocentric motion. In Astronomy, heliocentrism is the theory that the Sun is at the center of the Solar System. In Astronomy, the geocentric model of the Universe is the superseded theory that the Earth is the center of the universe and other This was displayed at the Deutsches Museum in 1924, construction work having been interrupted by the war. The planets travelled along overhead rails, powered by electric motors: the orbit of Saturn was 11. 25 m in diameter. 180 stars were projected onto the wall by electric bulbs.

While this was being constructed, von Miller was also working at the Zeiss factory with German astronomer Max Wolf, former director of the Baden Observatory in Heidelberg, on a new and novel design, inspired by Wallace W Atwood's work at the Chicago Academy of Sciences and by the ideas of Walther Bauersfeld at Zeiss. The result was a planetarium design which would generate all the necessary movements of the stars and planets inside the optical projector, and would be mounted centrally in a room, projecting images onto the white surface of a hemisphere. In August 1923, the first (Model I) Zeiss planetarium projected images of the night sky onto the white plaster lining of a 16 m hemispherical concrete dome, erected on the roof of the Zeiss works. The first official public showing was at the Deutsches Museum in Munich on October 21, 1923. The Deutsches Museum (German Museum in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest Museum of Technology and Science, with approximately Munich (München; Minga is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. [1]

Before World War II nearly all planetariums were built by Zeiss, the only notable exceptions being one built by two brothers named Korkosz in Springfield, Massachusetts, and another for the Rosicrucian AMORC order in San Jose, California. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Springfield is a City in and the County seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.

After WWII

When Germany was divided into East and West Germany after the war, the Zeiss firm was also split. Part remained in its traditional headquarters at Jena, in East Germany, and part migrated to West Germany. Jena (pronunciation ˈjeːna is a university City in central Germany on the river Saale. The German Democratic Republic ( GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a Socialist state West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( The designer of the first planetariums for Zeiss, Walther Bauersfeld, remained in Jena until his death in 1959. Walther Bauersfeld ( January 23, 1879 in Berlin – October 28, 1959 in Heidenheim an der Brenz) was a German engineer employed

The West German firm resumed making large planetariums in 1954, and the East German firm started making small planetariums a few years later. Meanwhile, the lack of planetarium manufacturers had led to several attempts at construction of unique models, such as one built by the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, which operated 1952-2003. The California Academy of Sciences is one of the ten largest Museums of natural history in the world and one of the oldest in the United States consisting of a coral Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco California, is a large Urban park consisting of 1017 acres (4 The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city The Korkosz brothers built a large projector for the Boston Museum of Science, which was unique in being the first (and for a very long time only) planetarium to project the planet Uranus. The Museum of Science ( MoS) is a Boston Massachusetts landmark located in Science Park a plot of land spanning the Charles River. Most planetariums ignore Uranus as being at best marginally visible to the naked eye.

A great boost to the popularity of the planetarium worldwide was provided by the Space Race of the 1950s and 60s when fears that the United States might miss out on the opportunities of the new frontier in space stimulated a massive program to install over 1,200 planetariums in U. The Space Race was a competition of space exploration between the Soviet Union and the United States, which lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975 S. high schools.

Armand Spitz recognized that there was a viable market for small inexpensive planetariums. Armand Neustadter Spitz (b Philadelphia, PA July 7 1904-d Fairfax, VA April 14 1971 son of Louis Spitz and Rose (Neustadter Spitz His first model, the Spitz A, was designed to project stars from a dodecahedron, thus reducing machining expenses in creating a globe. A dodecahedron is any Polyhedron with twelve faces but usually a regular dodecahedron is meant a Platonic solid composed of twelve regular Pentagonal Planets were not mechanized, but could be shifted by hand. Several models followed with various upgraded capabilities, until the A3P, which projected well over a thousand stars, had motorized motions for latitude change, daily motion, and annual motion for Sun, Moon (including phases), and planets. This model was installed in hundreds of high schools, colleges, and even small museums from 1964 to the 1980s.

Japan entered the planetarium manufacturing business in the 1960s, with Goto and Minolta both successfully marketing a number of different models. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Minolta Co Ltd was a Japanese worldwide manufacturer of Cameras camera accessories Photo-copiers Fax machines and Laser printers Goto was particularly successful when the Japanese Ministry of Education put one of their smallest models, the E-3 or E-5 (the numbers refer to the metric diameter of the dome) in every elementary school in Japan. See also Primary education An elementary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of Compulsory education known as elementary

Phillip Stern, as former lecturer at New York City's Hayden Planetarium, had the idea of creating a small planetarium which could be programmed. The City of New York |-| |-| |-| |}The Hayden Planetarium is a public Planetarium located on Central Park West, New York City, next to and organizationally part of the His Apollo model was introduced in 1967 with a plastic program board, recorded lecture, and film strip. Unable to pay for this himself, Stern became the head of the planetarium division of Viewlex, a mid-size audio-visual firm on Long Island. Long Island is an island located in southeastern New York, USA, its western shores directly across from Manhattan, from which the island stretches About thirty canned programs were created for various grade levels and the public, while operators could create their own or run the planetarium live. Purchasers of the Apollo were given their choice of two canned shows, and could purchase more. A few hundred were sold, but in the late 1970s Viewlex went bankrupt for reasons unrelated to the planetarium business.

During the 1970s, the OmniMax movie system (now known as IMAX Dome) was conceived to operate on planetarium screens. IMAX (short for Image MAXimum is a Film format created by Canada 's IMAX Corporation that has the capacity to display images of far greater size and More recently, some planetariums have re-branded themselves as dome theaters, with broader offerings including wide-screen or "wraparound" films, fulldome video, and laser shows that combine music with laser-drawn patterns. Fulldome is used to refer to immersive dome-based video projection environments

StarLab in Massachusetts offered the first easily portable planetarium in 1977 which projected stars, constellation figures from many mythologies, celestial coordinate systems, and much else, from removable cylinders (Viewlex and others followed with their own portable versions). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts ( is a state located in the New England region of the northeastern United States. In common usage a constellation is a group of celestial bodies that are connected together in some arrangement typically stars to form a visible figure or picture The word mythology (from the Greek grc μυθολογία mythología, meaning "a story-telling a legendary lore"

When Germany reunified in 1989, the two Zeiss firms did likewise, and expanded their offerings to cover many different size domes. German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung took place twice after 1945 first in 1957 the Saarland was permitted to join the Federal Republic of Germany

Computerized planetariums

In 1983, Evans & Sutherland installed the first planetarium projector displaying computer graphics—the Digistar I projector used a vector graphics system to display starfields as well as line art. Evans & Sutherland ( is a Computer firm involved in the Computer graphics field Printmaking art techniques such as Engraving, Etching, Woodcut and Lithography are covered more fully in their respective articles

The newest generation of planetariums such as Carl Zeiss's powerdome, Evans & Sutherland's Digistar 3, RSA Cosmos's InSpace System, Konica Minolta's MEDIAGLOBE,or Sky-Skan's DigitalSky, offer a fully digital projection system, using fulldome video technology. Evans & Sutherland ( is a Computer firm involved in the Computer graphics field Digistar 3 is a dome-based projection technology created by Evans & Sutherland - to offer audiences Immersive entertainment and education experiences that integrate is a Japanese manufacturer of office equipment Medical imaging, Graphic imaging, Optical devices and Measuring instruments The company A digital system uses discrete (discontinuous values usually but not always Symbolized Numerically (hence called "digital" to represent information for Fulldome is used to refer to immersive dome-based video projection environments This gives the operator great flexibility in showing not only the modern night sky as visible from Earth, but any other image they wish (including the night sky as visible from points far distant in space and time). EARTH was a short-lived Japanese vocal trio which released 6 singles and 1 album between 2000 and 2001

A new generation of home planetariums was released in Japan by Takayuki Ohira in cooperation with Sega. is a multinational Video game Software and Hardware development company and a former Home computer Ohira is worldwide known as a mastermind for building portable planetariums used at exhibitions and events such as the Aichi World Expo in 2005. The Homestar Planetarium can be carried in a bag and is intended for home use, however by projecting 10,000 stars on the ceiling makes it semi-professional. [1]

Planetarium technology

Domes

Planetarium domes range in size from 3 to 30 m in diameter, accommodating from 1 to 500 people. Geometry, a diameter of a Circle is any straight Line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose Endpoints are on the They can be permanent or portable, depending on the application.

The realism of the viewing experience in a planetarium depends significantly on the dynamic range of the image, i. Dynamic range is a term used frequently in numerous fields to describe the Ratio between the smallest and largest possible values of a changeable quantity such as in Sound e. , the contrast between dark and light. This can be a challenge in any domed projection environment, because a bright image projected on one side of the dome will tend to reflect light across to the opposite side, "lifting" the black level there and so making the whole image look less realistic. Video displays generally need to be calibrated so that the displayed black is true to the black information in the signal Since traditional planetarium shows consisted mainly of small points of light (i. e. , stars) on a black background, this was not a significant issue, but it became an issue as digital projection systems started to fill large portions of the dome with bright objects (e. g. , large images of the sun in context). For this reason, modern planetarium domes are often not painted white but rather a mid grey colour, reducing reflection to perhaps 35-50%. This increases the perceived level of contrast.

A major challenge in dome construction is to make seams as invisible as possible. Painting a dome after installation is a major task and, if done properly, the seams can be made almost to disappear.

Traditionally, planetarium domes were mounted horizontally, matching the natural horizon of the real night sky. However, because that configuration requires highly inclined chairs for comfortable viewing "straight up", increasingly domes are being built tilted from the horizontal by between 5 and 30 degrees to provide greater comfort. Tilted domes tend to create a favoured 'sweet spot' for optimum viewing, centrally about a third of the way up the dome from the lowest point. Tilted domes generally have seating arranged 'stadium-style' in straight, tiered rows; horizontal domes usually have seats in circular rows, arranged in concentric (facing center) or epicentric (facing front) arrays.

Planetariums occasionally include controls such as buttons or joysticks in the arm-rests of seats to allow audience feedback that influences the show in real time. A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling In Computer science, real-time computing (RTC is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"—i

Often around the edge of the dome (the 'cove') are:-

Traditionally, planetariums needed many incandescent lamps around the cove of the dome to help audience entry and exit, to simulate sunrise and sunset, and to provide working light for dome cleaning. The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is a source of electric Light that works by Incandescence, (a general Sunrise is the instant at which the upper edge of the Sun appears above the Horizon in the East. Sunset, also called sundown in some American English Dialects is the instant when the trailing edge of the Sun 's disk disappears below More recently, solid-state LED lighting has become available that significantly decreases power consumption and reduces the maintenance requirement as lamps no longer have to be changed on a regular basis.

Traditional electromechanical/optical projectors

Zeiss projector at Montreal Planetarium
Zeiss projector at Montreal Planetarium

Traditional planetarium projection apparatus uses a hollow ball with a light inside, and a pinhole for each star, hence the name "star ball". The Montreal Planetarium (Official French Planétarium de Montréal; formerly known as the Dow Planetarium) is a public Planetarium located in With some of the brightest stars (e. g. Sirius, Canopus, Vega), the hole must be so big to let enough light through that there must be a small lens in the hole to focus the light to a sharp point on the dome. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky with a visual Apparent magnitude of &minus1 Vega (α Lyr / α Lyrae / Alpha Lyrae ( or) is the brightest Star in the Constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night

The star ball is usually mounted so it can rotate as a whole to simulate the Earth's daily rotation, and to change the simulated latitude on Earth. There is also usually a means of rotating to produce the effect of precession of the equinoxes. In Astronomy, Precession refers to the movement of the rotational axis of a body such as a planet with respect to Inertial space. Often, one such ball is attached at its south ecliptic pole. The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year In that case, the view cannot go so far south that any of the resulting blank area at the south is projected on the dome. Some star projectors have two balls at opposite ends of the projector like a dumbbell. A dumbbell is a piece of equipment used in Weight training, and is a type of free weight. In that case all stars can be shown and the view can go to either pole or anywhere between. But care must be taken that the projection fields of the two balls match where they meet or overlap.

Smaller planetarium projectors include a set of fixed stars, Sun, Moon, and planets, and various nebulae. A nebula (from Latin: "mist" pl nebulae or nebulæ, with ligature or nebulas) is an Interstellar cloud of Larger projectors also include comets and a far greater selection of stars. A comet is a small Solar System body that orbits the Sun and when close enough to the Sun exhibits a visible coma (atmosphere or a tail — Additional projectors can be added to show twilight around the outside of the screen (complete with city or country scenes) as well as the Milky Way. The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek Γαλαξίας (Galaxias sometimes referred to simply Others add coordinate lines and constellations, photographic slides, laser displays, and other images. In common usage a constellation is a group of celestial bodies that are connected together in some arrangement typically stars to form a visible figure or picture A laser is a device that emits Light ( Electromagnetic radiation) through a process called Stimulated emission.

Each planet is projected by a sharply focused spotlight that makes a spot of light on the dome. Planet projectors must have gearing to move their positioning and thereby simulate the planets' movements. These can be of these types:-

The planet lights must be powered by wires, which have to bend about as the planets rotate, and repeatedly bending copper wire tends to cause metal fatigue.
When a planet is at opposition to the Earth, its light is liable to be blocked by the mechanism's central axle. Opposition is a term used in Positional astronomy and Astrology to indicate when one celestial body is on the opposite side of the sky when viewed from
(If the planet mechanism is set 180° rotated from reality, the lights are carried by the Earth and shines towards each planet, and the blocking risk happens at conjunction with Earth. Conjunction is a term used in Positional astronomy and Astrology. )

Despite offering a good viewer experience, traditional star ball projectors suffer several inherent limitations. From a practical point of view, the low light levels require several minutes for the audience to "dark adapt" its eyesight. In ocular physiology adaptation is the ability of the Eye to adjust to various levels of darkness and light "Star ball" projection is limited in education terms by its inability to move beyond an earth-bound view of the night sky. Finally, a challenge for most traditional projectors is that the various overlaid projection systems are incapable of proper occultation. In Shia Islam The Occultation is a term used to designate the hidden state of the Imam of the Time. This means that a planet image projected on top of a star field (for example) will still show the stars shining through the planet image, degrading the quality of the viewing experience. For related reasons, some planetariums show stars below the horizon projecting on the walls below the dome or on the floor, or (with a bright star or a planet) shining in the eyes of someone in the audience.

However, the new breed of Optical-Mechanical projectors using fiber-optic technology to display the stars, show a much more realistic view of the sky, and are far superior to any digital star projector.

Digital projectors

An increasing number of planetariums are using digital technology to replace the entire system of interlinked projectors traditionally employed around a star ball to address some of their limitations. A digital system uses discrete (discontinuous values usually but not always Symbolized Numerically (hence called "digital" to represent information for Digital planetarium manufacturers claim reduced maintenance costs and increased reliability from such systems compared with traditional "star balls" on the grounds that they employ few moving parts and do not generally require synchronisation of movement across the dome between several separate systems. Some planetariums mix both traditional opto-mechanical projection and digital technologies on the same dome.

In a fully digital planetarium, the dome image is generated by a computer and then projected onto the dome using a variety of technologies including cathode ray tube, LCD, DLP or laser projectors. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. The cathode ray tube (CRT is a Vacuum tube containing an Electron gun (a source of electrons and a Fluorescent screen with internal or Digital Light Processing (DLP is a Trademark owned by Texas Instruments, representing a technology used in projectors and Video projectors It was A laser is a device that emits Light ( Electromagnetic radiation) through a process called Stimulated emission. Sometimes a single projector mounted near the centre of the dome is employed with a "fish eye lens" to spread the light over the whole dome surface, while in other configurations several projectors around the horizon of the dome are arranged to blend together seamlessly.

Digital projection systems all work by creating the image of the night sky as a large array of pixels. In Digital imaging, a pixel ( pict ure el ement is the smallest piece of information in an image Generally speaking, the more pixels a system can display, the better the viewing experience. While the first generation of digital projectors were unable to generate enough pixels to match the image quality of the best traditional "star ball" projectors, high-end systems now offer a resolution that approaches the limit of human visual acuity, making their images subjectively indistinguishable from the very best "star balls" to most eyes. Eye examination Visual acuity (VA is acuteness or clearness of vision, especially form vision which is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the

However, these digital star projectors do not show "pin-point" stars like one would actually see in the real sky. The colors of the stars are also not correct. Although the digital projectors are good for "travelling" through space, their ability to show a realistic star field is decades away. And although the digital manufacturers may say that the costs of maintenance are reduced, in reality, the maintenance costs of the digital and video units are significantly more than those of their optical-mechanical counterparts.

LCD projectors have fundamental limits on their ability to project true black as well as light, which has tended to limit their use in planetariums. LCOS and modified LCOS projectors have improved on LCD contrast ratios while also eliminating the “screen door” effect of small gaps between LCD pixels. Liquid crystal on silicon ( LCOS or LCoS) is a "micro-projection" or "micro-display" Technology typically applied in projection The contrast ratio is a measure of a display system defined as the Ratio of the Luminance of the brightest color (white to that of the darkest color (black that “Dark chip” DLP projectors improve on the standard DLP design and can offer relatively inexpensive solution with bright images, but the black level requires physical baffling of the projectors. As the technology matures and reduces in price, laser projection looks promising for dome projection as it offers bright images, large dynamic range and a very wide color space. A Color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way Colors can be represented as Tuples of numbers typically as three or four values or color components

Planetarium show content

Worldwide, most planetariums provide shows to the general public. Traditionally, shows for these audiences with themes such as "What's in the sky tonight?", or shows which pick up on topical issues such as a religious festival (often the Christmas star) linked to the night sky, have been popular. See also Star of Bethlehem (plant. The Star of Bethlehem, also called the Christmas Star, is a star in Christian tradition Pre-recorded and live presentation formats are possible. Live format are preferred by many venues (despite the increased expense) because a live expert presenter can answer on-the-spot questions raised by the audience.

Since the early 1990s, fully featured 3-D digital planetariums have added an extra degree of freedom to a presenter giving a show because they allow simulation of the view from any point in space, not only the earth-bound view which we are most familiar with. 3D computer graphics (in contrast to 2D computer graphics) are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer This new virtual reality capability to travel through the universe provides important educational benefits because it vividly conveys that space has depth, helping audiences to leave behind the ancient misconception that the stars are stuck on the inside of a giant celestial sphere and instead to understand the true layout of the solar system and beyond. Virtual reality ( VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a Computer-simulated environment be it a real or imagined one Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency In Astronomy and Navigation, the celestial sphere is an imaginary rotating Sphere of "gigantic Radius " The Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by Gravity. For example, a planetarium can now 'fly' the audience towards one of the familiar constellations such as Orion, revealing that the stars which appear to make up a co-ordinated shape from our earth-bound viewpoint are at vastly different distances from Earth and so not connected, except in human imagination and mythology. Orion (ɒˈraɪən a Constellation often referred to as The Hunter, is a prominent constellation one of the largest and perhaps the best-known and most conspicuous The word mythology (from the Greek grc μυθολογία mythología, meaning "a story-telling a legendary lore" For especially visual or spatially-aware people, this experience can be more educationally beneficial than other demonstrations. Proprioception (ˌproʊpriːəˈsɛpʃən PRO -pree-o-SEP-shun from Latin proprius, meaning "one's own" and perception is the Sense

Music is an important element to fill out the experience of a good planetarium show, often featuring forms of space-themed music, or music from the genres of space music, space rock, or classical music. Space-Themed Music is any music from any genre or style with lyrics or titles relating to outer space or space travel Space music, also spelled spacemusic, is an umbrella term used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness Space rock is a subgenre of Rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early mostly British 1970s Progressive rock and psychedelic Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to mainstream music produced in or rooted in the traditions of Western liturgical and Secular music

Notable planetariums

See List of planetariums (also includes planetarium computer software and planetarium manufacturers)

Sources

See also

References

External links

Dictionary

planetarium

-noun

  1. A display museum in which images of stars and other astronomical phenomena are projected onto a domed ceiling.
  2. An orrery.
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