New planetarium reaches for stars
The planetarium is located on the first floor of Herty Hall behind the Natural History Museum. It was completed this summer and the finished product opened this fall.
Donovan Domingue, assistant professor of Astronomy, is currently running the planetarium. He spoke about the extensive process of preparing the planetarium for its debut.
“This project has been in the planning stages for about five years,” Domingue said. “We had an empty room, but we just didn’t have the funds.”
After many years of accumulating the necessary funds to complete the planetarium, the department of Chemistry and Physics was finally able to complete the endeavor. The money came from three main sources: the Grassman foundation, GCSU student technology fees and funds raised by the Chemistry and Physics department at GCSU.
The planetarium is currently only open for the science lab classes at GCSU and local schools to schedule fiend trips to visit, but that will be changing soon.
“We are currently training planetarium operators so that by January we will have trained enough planetarium operators to open the planetarium up for students to sign up for a time to come visit,” Domingue said. “Students who come will be able to see features of the night sky.”
Although the planetarium does give a spectacular view of the night sky, it is capable of much more than merely star gazing.
The digital projector emits a huge image onto a 20 foot diameter aluminum dome above the viewers. It can show current views of stars from a distance or zoom in.
The digital projector can also display a selection of movies onto the giant screen. Some of the movies GCSU has already purchased include “Exploring Mars”, “The Space Telescopes” and the subject of finding life in other places. The department plans to continue to expand on their educational yet fascinating movie selection.
Sophomore Alex Taylor is currently taking Astronomy. Her lab classes are actually held in the planetarium, which she said has been a great experience.
“I like it so much better than using a computer,” she said. “It’s a lot more hands on and so much easier for visual learners because you can actually see everything.”
Evan Sand, Vice President of the Physics and Astronomy club at GCSU and member of Sky Watchers, is very excited about the completion of this new planetarium.
“This is just great because it will help students especially in astronomy classes visualize things without having to do late night meetings. The community can also come and enjoy this,” he said. “It’s just so much better than looking in a book.”
Sand elaborated on the possibilities that the planetarium can have when people discover this new addition to GCSU’s campus.
“Other than the fact that the planetarium is just wicked cool, the capabilities are really endless, you can do so much with it.” Sand said. “It’s really just awesome, and it has so much potential.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 24 2008. Filed under News.
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