When Nashville’s Adventure Science Center opens its newly-rebuilt Sudekum Planetarium Saturday it will unveil the GOTO Chiron optical star projector that is only one of four in the world. The other three are in Japan, where they’re manufactured.
The technology can display 6.5 million stars at once. The old equipment could only project about 2,500 stars. Planetarium director Kris McCall operates the star projector.
“And the cool thing about that is anything you can see on a computer we can project on the interior surface of the dome, horizon to horizon.”
The 12-million-pixel, 63-foot dome is essentially a giant projector screen, which gives viewers a sense of dimension as they stare up at a digital sky. Images are projected onto the dome using equipment originally designed for the film industry.
The inaugural film for the new exhibit also features a soundtrack performed by the Nashville Symphony.
Recently, the Metro council cut about one hundred-thousand dollars in funding to the Adventure Science Center. President Susan Duvenhage calls the cut “devastating.” She says the center still needs to raise $1 million dollars to cover the exhibit’s $21.4 million dollar price tag.
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