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What is the Travelers Science Dome?
Until a few years ago planetariums utilized many different types of projectors to create a simulated universe under the dome. To show the universe of stars, galaxies, nebulae, planets, asteroids, comets, black holes, spacecraft, and moons, we used dozens of different projectors and a star machine, run by an analog computer that took up an entire room. All of these systems worked together like individual instruments of an orchestra to show a few thousand stars, a dozen deep sky objects, and slide images of many celestial objects. But the universe does have more than just a few thousand stars in it and is changing every day. The variety of objects out there is just, well, astronomical.
Now take all those systems, in fact, let’s take our cataloged universe of half a billion stars and innumerable galaxies, nebulae, planets, asteroids, comets, black holes, spacecraft, and moons and put it into something the size of a breadbox. The known universe and the technology to show it on the dome has been reduced into a few PCs and a single video projector.
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The immersive and “Pixar” style of many of these shows is designed to nourish our imaginations and sense of exploration of the world around us.
This cutting edge digital technology will bring increased programming in astronomy and space science as well as biology, earth science, paleontology, meteorology, and even the arts to the children and families of Connecticut. SciDome will benefit the educational needs of students and families across the state allowing them to visualize moving through space and time to observe the workings of the universe.
For more information on fulldome planetariums and this amazing educational technology go to Wikipedia.
For more information on the NEW Travelers Science Dome at the Gengras Planetarium contact Jason T. Archer at 860.231.2830 ext 40.
The Travelers Science Dome at the Gengras Planetarium is made possible thanks to a major gift by Travelers.
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