Since 1975, Fiske Planetarium has been the Johnny Appleseed of astronomy. Each year, 30,000 K-12 students and 4,000 University of Colorado Boulder students go there to take a front-row seat on the universe.
Soon, they鈥檒l get a better, clearer and deeper view. And Fiske won鈥檛 be just for astronomy anymore. For now, however, Fiske is full of dust and darkness.
The campus is renovating the planetarium, retiring its analog star projector and upgrading to a powerful star plus video system paired with a high-definition screen capable of achieving nearly eight times more resolution than the standard HD television, completely surrounding the audience with a 360-degree view.
The improvements will allow students to see鈥攁nd understand鈥攎ore of the universe. With the naked eye, observers of the night sky see about 6,000 stars; with binoculars, about 20 million stars are visible. The new Fiske digital projector upgrades the planetarium sky by this same amount, allowing a significantly deeper view of the firmament.
Further, the new system will allow observers to 鈥渇ly鈥� through space, further enhancing their understanding of celestial bodies. Once installed, the state-of-the-art theater will be one of only five of its kind in the world (the other four are in New York, Chicago, China and Germany).
One of the biggest changes is that Fiske will be open to the public Saturdays and Sundays, playing a variety of 鈥渂ig screen鈥� videos similar to what can be seen at IMAX theaters in Denver.
While Fiske is closed now, students shouldn鈥檛 be deterred from taking astronomy courses. Classes will meet in the planetarium in the beginning of fall semester, before the public opening.
鈥淲e intend to be fully operational sometime in the fall鈥攁nd will be offering all of these various educational and public performances,鈥� said John Stocke, professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences.
While the date of public openings aren鈥檛 yet certain, the planetarium staff should have opening dates announced by August, Stocke said.
Introductory-level astronomy classes typically have between two and seven planetarium visits during the term. These classes are generally for non-majors, and they are classes on both solar system and stars and galaxies.
Stocke teaches a class on ancient astronomies that meets every Thursday in Fiske. 鈥淚t鈥檚 basically naked-eye astronomy,鈥� plus related anthropology and archaeology such as calendars, eclipse predictions, ethnic cosmologies.
While the Fiske team learns the ropes on the new star projector this fall, Stocke plans to begin teaching his courses simple celestial motions, eclipses and the like. As the semester goes on, that class will see more-elaborate presentations.
Other classes, which tend to be taken by non-majors, visit Fiske two or three times a semester. These presentations use 鈥渄ramatic visuals to introduce students to the solar system, with, for instance, 鈥渇ly-throughs鈥� visually similar to those seen by K-12 students but with more-advanced material.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very difficult to grasp celestial mechanics from a book,鈥� said Tom Muncy, Fiske planetarium systems engineer. 鈥淢y first year here, I didn鈥檛 understand celestial mechanics.鈥�
The visualizations at Fiske allowed him to 鈥済o鈥� anywhere on the Earth and see the stars. 鈥淭he lights just came on鈥攚ow.鈥�
Although Fiske is a university facility, it puts on educational star shows for 30,000 K-12 students a year.
鈥淭hey come from as far as Grand Junction and all corners of Colorado,鈥� said Francisco Salas, operations and program manager at Fiske. Programs for K-12 students are also produced in Spanish.
The new system will yield other educational advantages, Salas and Stocke said. It will enable the Fiske crew to display how planets looked from Earth in the past. The retiring system could not adequately show how the sky looked at a particular point in history, 鈥減articularly the positions of the planets at earlier times,鈥� Stocke said.
The reason is that the old star projector system鈥攃alled 鈥淔ritz鈥� after the West German technician who installed it鈥攎oves via an elaborate system of gears. To show a particular point in history, Fiske would have to run 鈥淔ritz鈥� backwards.
That task has been done, for instance, to illustrate the 鈥淪tar of Bethlehem,鈥� which Stocke discusses in the ancient astronomy class.
鈥淚 use a laptop computer planetarium program to show that a potential candidate for the Star of Bethlehem is a very close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, so close that they overlapped as a single image.鈥�
鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 do that with Fritz,鈥� Stocke said. 鈥淚n fact, to set things up to do an approximation of that, we had to take the system off-line after a certain date in November so that the staff could run the projector back to a position that was relatively close (about 1962).鈥�
鈥淏ut this then meant that every presentation I made after that time in the semester, I could not show the planets, because they would not be in the right place. The new system will be able to do this trivially.鈥�
Now, Fiske hires about 25 students to help run the planetarium. With the new system, that number will rise by a dozen or more because of increased video production and larger expected audiences.
鈥淲e have the best jobs on campus for film students and future science teachers,鈥� said Fiske Director Doug Duncan. 鈥淭he film students may make the next 鈥楢vatar鈥� or a future documentary, but right now, they are designing shows for Fiske, building images of what newly discovered planets would look like if you could see them up close.鈥�
The planetarium鈥檚 staff is eager to host K-12 students. 鈥淭hese are the students who might become CU students in the future.鈥�
Fiske will be offering Saturday and Sunday shows as a movie-theater style venue, and presentations, largely movies, will be shown to students and the general public.
鈥淲e expect Fiske to become a weekend destination for families and individuals, like the Denver museum but closer,鈥� said Duncan. 鈥淲e are forming a film board, kind of like a film festival, to choose what programs to bring to Boulder.鈥�
Stocke added: 鈥淚鈥檓 not saying we want to compete with Twenty Ninth Street, but we may want to run movies that are a little more affordable and 鈥� look good on a big screen and in a wonderful sound environment.鈥�
The popular weekend-night laser shows鈥攍ike 鈥淟aser Floyd鈥濃�攚ill continue to be shown, but on an upgraded laser system. Fiske is the only venue in Colorado that does laser shows. 鈥淭here鈥檚 something about seeing Pink Floyd with lasers,鈥� Salas said.
Meanwhile, 鈥淔ritz鈥� the star-projector will neither be gone nor forgotten. 鈥淔ritz鈥� will remain on display in the planetarium.
The use of geared mechanisms to represent the movements of planets and stars dates back to about 200 B.C.E. 鈥淪o it has this huge, long tradition,鈥� Stocke said. And 鈥淔ritz鈥� is the penultimate geared analog device for replicating the motions and positions of things in the sky.
Though the new Fiske Planetarium has multiple public uses, private funds are needed. Hewlett Packard donated the powerful computers that enable video production. Naming rights to the star theater are up for grabs.
By Clint Talbott. For more information on Fiske and its renovation, see听听and see the full article with video at the College of Arts & Sciences magazine .
