The interior of the BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Planetarium (left) and the view from outside
Our goal is to bridge the access gap and stream content into 14,000 schools across the state. That appealed to Boeing, and the company was very excited to put its name on the observatory
Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, though definitely a different look. The planetarium is next to the textile mill, so one of the interior walls is the exterior wall of the mill. It’s lovely to have the juxtaposition of this historic 60-foot (18-metre) wall with the modern glass and steel cube.
What hardware is the planetarium equipped with? Two Sony SRX projectors with fisheye lenses; that’s a 4K system. It’s an E&S Digistar 5 system and the sound system is Bowen Technovation. We have 145 seats, five wheelchair accessible, provided by American Seating.
How did the project come about? There was a planetarium in Columbia until the early 1990s which was part of the Gibbes Art Museum. When the art
AM 4 2014 ©cybertrek 2014
museum moved, it didn’t want to take the planetarium and so it gave the equipment to the State Museum. Seventeen years later, we opened this planetarium! We have the old (1971) Minolta MS10
star projector, which will be an exhibit piece. I’d love to put it in the dome but sadly we don’t have the right wiring.
The museum has said it hopes the Windows to New Worlds expansion will help place the institution at the cutting edge of STEM education. Education is a big part of the State Museum’s mission. Our new facility and programs will put STEM resources in the hands of students – both at the museum and in their classrooms. It’s a university town in the heart of a state that has a lot of science industries and businesses like Boeing, BMW and Michelin. Focusing on those key industries is part of what
we’re trying to do to get kids excited about going into the fields of science and technology. Hopefully we’ll inspire future engineers, scientists, educators and perhaps even astronauts.
Is that how Boeing came on board? Boeing was very excited about our distance-learning components, especially since South Carolina has several pockets of rural and poor areas, with many students unable to travel to the museum. Our goal is to bridge this access gap and stream content into approximately 14,000 schools across the state. That appealed to Boeing, and the company was very excited to put its name on the observatory.
What shows are you playing? We opened with Seven Wonders, an E&S feature. We have Two Small Pieces of Glass: The Amazing Telescope [Interstellar
Read Attractions Management online
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PHOTOS: BRETT FLASHNICK / SEAN RAYFORD
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