VISITOR ATTRACTIONS
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The Zeiss-Großplanetarium presents impressive visuals such as the solar projection shown in this image
to be built in the US and the first in the South. During the period after World War II, there were very few Zeiss projectors available due to the company having lost a number of factories in the war. John Motley Morehead III travelled to Sweden to purchase a Zeiss Model II, which would ultimately serve as the heart of the planetarium. A few years after its opening, the Morehead Planetarium became the home of astronaut training and, between 1959 and 1975, just about every astronaut who participated in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programmes trained at Morehead. In 2011, the planetarium switched out its Zeiss Mark VI star projector (that had replaced the Model II in 1969) for a new fulldome digital projection system and released its first original fulldome
and sheer thrill of entertainment-based media. It’s no longer limited to those kinds of stories; we now present shows about all sorts of subjects, including important topics and issues such as climate change. I think that’s one of the things which is changing most from a commercial and business point of view, a lot of planetariums are now moving into – or trying to explore more – commercial ventures like showing entertainment content, especially relating to music.” COMMENCING COUNTDOWN, ENGINES ON The first planetarium to open on a university campus in the United States was the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Opening its doors for the first time in May 1949, it was the eighth planetarium
resolution of about 5.5K at the moment, and that’s provided by 13 domestic BenQ projectors. That’s 13 projectors with blends covering the whole surface to bring our shows to life. They’re hoping to move to an 8K projection system, which will probably be laser-based, moving away from a more limited colour space into a much richer RGB colour space. The whole experience should be even more amazing once that’s in.” Planetariums have largely been arenas to tell stories and relay information about what’s happening in space, but Squires believes this is changing and no longer solely the case. “Digital fulldome started around 1999; before that it was star balls and anode projectors,” adds Squires. “They’re moving away from a solely STEM-based model into ones that are embracing far more of the techniques
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