The best viewing of the Perseid meteor shower will be Friday night, with the moon at your back, according to Peggy Hernandez, School District U46’s planetarium teacher.
She modeled what the sky will look like late Friday night on the dome of the Elgin School District U46 observatory and planetarium, using the Star Projector Lamp that’s been part of the building at 312 Watch St. since the 1960s.
But the light that flickered briefly across the dome Wednesday evening wasn’t a shooting star, nor was it part of her demonstration, Hernandez said.
“That’s one of the drawbacks to adding a projector to the dome — you get some weird reflections from time to time,” she said.
About 200 people turned out Wednesday night for the debut of the planetarium’s new digital projector.
U46 had planned two screenings that night of a short educational film about telescopes called “Two Pieces of Glass,” shown in 360 degrees on the planetarium’s dome using the new projector. It quickly added a third as lines stretched out the door and down to the sidewalk after the planetarium was filled for the second show.
About 60 people can fit into the padded seats that circle the room underneath the dome, according to Jennifer McDonnell, U46’s coordinator of math, science, planetarium and instructional technology. And the district also had pushed a few folding chairs into empty spaces in the planetarium Wednesday.
“It’s so cool,” McDonnell said. “I’m so excited about it. I wanted this so badly. I was like, ‘We have to get this.’ ”
Hernandez found out what projectors other planetariums across the area use from a Great Lakes Planetarium Association conference, McDonnell said. And U46 was able to secure a grant to cover a $31,000 package with Warped Media for maintenance for all the planetarium’s equipment and Warped Media’s LCD projector, the most cost-efficient, she said.
The district’s financial services department did not return questions about the source of that grant Thursday by The Courier-News.
Multiple shows
The planetarium now has three full-dome shows it can display, such as “Two Pieces of Glass,” McDonnell said. The film traces the history of the telescope from Galileo’s modifications of a spyglass to NASA’s plans for a telescope the size of a football field.
The planetarium also screened several trailers for other educational films Wednesday. They included a journey through the human body, a shark swimming lazy circles around the dome (before ramming it) and a tour of the solar system from the outside in.
It also could show entertainment films, such as at an IMAX Theatre, she said.
“Now we can actually expand to all types of programs,” McDonnell said. “It’s a different way to teach science.”
During the first showing of “Two Pieces of Glass” Wednesday, 6-year-old Blake Kubicek of Elgin gasped as Saturn’s rings circled the planetarium’s dome. He tipped his head back onto his dad Dave Kubicek’s shoulder, whispering the names of the planets as they appeared overhead.
Blake will start first grade at St. Laurence School in Elgin this coming school year, Kubicek said. And he said he wasn’t sure if his son would have the chance to visit the U46 observatory and planetarium at St. Laurence.
“That’s why we wanted to bring him down here,” he said.
“He’s been all about the planets and space lately, so (my wife) wanted to show him this. We figure if they’re going to be doing this on a regular basis, we can make it here in two minutes,” Kubicek said.
The district plans to begin offering similar full-dome shows weekly at the planetarium, McDonnell said.
Last school year, the observatory and planetarium increased its programming to welcome more visitors to the building than it has since the 1980s. It has estimated about 22,000 will visit in 2011.
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