PLANETARIUMS
All shows are live with a 30-minute talk by an astronomer
Julie Cramer, journalist
STARRY SKIES
The newly upgraded Fiske Planetarium in Boulder,
Colorado now boasts the highest specifi cation full dome theatre in the US. Director Douglas Duncan explains
how the dome’s 8K resolution has transformed the user experience and opened up exciting new opportunities
Douglas Duncan Director
How long did the development take? The actual construction was really fast – only eight months in total. But to research the market, we spent fi ve years studying planetariums around the world, visiting places like the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London and full dome the- atres in Germany, China and the US. We opened in October 2013 and have been on an adrenaline high ever since.
Are you pleased with the results? We’re delighted with the quality. Full dome theatre technology has evolved
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relatively slowly and I think we’ve only recently reached an interesting threshold in the type of theatre that’s now available. Our new 8k theatre is that threshold. It’s the point where the picture technology becomes so sharp and real that there are no longer any identifi able pixels and the screen becomes so immersive the audi- ence totally forgets their surroundings. There are more than 100 full domes
theatres around the world, but currently you can count the number of 8k theatres on one hand.
What were the dome specifi cations? We worked with Sky-Skan in the US. The cost of this type of technology has really only just dropped to a more affordable level in the past year. We’ve invested around US$3m (E2.2m, £1.8m) in the site and have six projec-
Read Attractions Management online
attractionsmanagement.com/digital
The new full dome is one of only several 8k theatres in the world
tors, each being run by four computers. That’s the equivalent of having 40 Blu-ray players running at once. The dome is 8,000 by 8,000 pixels, which requires a 20m (66ft)-diameter dome with a 200-seat capacity. The screen is pretty much the resolution of Imax, yet Imax is still fi lm and not digital. We also have a mechanical star ball machine, produced by a new company in Japan called Megastar. At 3ft (0.9ft)-high, it looks a little like R2D2 sitting in the middle of the theatre. It’s capable of pro- jecting 20 million stars – you can actually take out your binoculars inside the dome to view them. Also, an American fi rm called Astrotec
have done a great job of building the dome. It’s the same company that built the fi rst dome at Fiske, which served us very well for 40 years.
AM 2 2014 ©Cybertrek 2014
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