A while back I wrote about this huge video project we’ve undertaken at the company my husband and I run. Basically it all stems from the planetarium world changing from a realm of starballs and slide projectors to a realm where digital video also paints the dome. The change represents a huge leap from making slides and figuring out how to move them around the dome (using mirrors to reflect images, etc.) to learning video production tools and being worried about resolution and rendering times. All this before you put a single image on the dome or a single word down on tape for the soundtrack. (Tape? What’s tape? These days it’s all digital audio!).

Most of us grew up going to see a planetarium instrument that looked something like the ones below.

Lots of memories around those lovely projectors! I first learned to work one at Fiske Planetarium in Boulder, Colorado. There is NOTHING like taking the controls of a star instrument and literally making the universe do what you want it to!

Now, mind you, those instruments aren’t going away, even in this new realm of fulldome video. Some theaters are replacing their opto-mechanical systems with video, but some are opting to have BOTH types of projection systems under one dome.

So, next time you walk into your local planetarium, you might see one of those instruments above, but there might also be something that looks like a box with a huge lens on top of it, all controlled by a computer (maybe even a laptop).

How does this affect us? Well, now we get to be video production types, taking the shows we used to do with slides and mirrors, and applying all the latest techniques to fulldome video production. It’s a huge paradigm shift, to be sure. But it’s also challenging and fun and stimulating.

Last week I attended a planetarium meeting in Detroit, Michigan. It was a chance to meet and greet many colleagues I hadn’t seen in a while—and show them our latest show—Hubble Vision presentation—with the help from our friends at the Detroit Science Center and Sky-SKan, Inc.

Show presentations in planetarium theaters have come a long way since the old “lecture with a green arrow pointer” under the sky. Oh, we all still do those lectures. They can be some of the most rewarding experiences, especially if we have a motivated and interested audience. In addition to those time-honored lectures, multi-media shows are also part of the standard fare at planetaria. Many facilities use slide-projection systems and video, others use what is called “fulldome video.” Our Hubble Vision show started out as a slide show, but we also produced it as a fulldome video.

We saw other shows at the meeting, and visited three other planetarium facilities during the course of 2.5 days. It was a hectic schedule for the 165 or so planetarians who attended. We also heard a number of good papers given on various aspects of planetarium presentations, and Mark gave a workshop on how to use PhotoShop and AfterEffects (both by Adobe) to get material ready to show in fulldome systems.

What do planetarium folk talk about at these meetings? Pretty much anything you can think of that helps to improve and spice up presentations. Lecture methods, science talks, production tools, and vendor presentations all make for a pretty busy conference. Peek here for the main schedule we followed.

I always get a lot out of these meetings. For one thing, it gives me a chance to check out how our shows and other products are being used and received by the client base. But, the biggest thing is the personal interaction we get with other planetarians. Whether our colleagues work under the dome full time or are vendor planetarians, there’s always something to talk about!