Renovating SF State’s Planetarium to Fuel STEM Education and Outreach on Campus and Beyond
Gillis Lowry
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Faculty Supervisor: Adrienne Cool
SF State's Charles Hagar planetarium will soon be undergoing a complete renovation. Its venerable but aging star projector will be replaced with a state-of-the-art Zeiss star projector enabling visitors to experience the night sky as it appears from the darkest sites anywhere on Earth on any date and time. A planned complementary video projection system covering the entire dome will further enable SF State students and members of the public to experience leaving the surface of Earth for the first time in this facility. Using NASA-sponsored "OpenSpace" software, we will explore other planets in the Solar System, visualize the structure of the Milky Way and other galaxies, and put our own precious planet in perspective using real data collected by the latest satellites and telescopes. We briefly describe the exciting range of opportunities that this new facility will provide to SF State students, the broader campus community, and the Bay Area.