Our takeaways from The Society of German-Speaking Planetaria (GDP) Annual Meeting
The future of LED display tech is hereEvans & Sutherland, a Cosm company, was honored to sponsor The Society of German-Speaking Planetaria (GDP) Annual Meeting on April 18. The virtual gathering marked the kickoff of show season in our industry this year to share...
Evans & Sutherland Supports GSCA as the Exclusive Partner Sponsor for Virtual Film Expo 2021
April 15, 2021—The Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) is pleased to announce Evans & Sutherland, a Cosm Company, as the exclusive Partner Sponsor for Virtual Film Expo 2021, April 19–23. Evans & Sutherland (E&S) is a committed supporter of GSCA, and...
A Small Solve For a Big Production Challenge
The old adage that “necessity is the mother of invention” has rung true this past year due to the coronavirus pandemic, as thousands of planetariums and science institutions have scrambled to redefine how they present to their audiences. Unable to use their domes,...
Stars Shine Bright in Shanghai
In 1994, Evans & Sutherland (E&S) and Spitz, Inc. ventured to China, bringing dome planetariums, cutting edge software, and large format screens to a new frontier. We have worked hand-in-hand with our partners in China, growing the number of premiere...
Robin Sip, Donna Cox receive IPS recognition
Congratulations to Evans & Sutherland Director of Show Production & Content Robin Sip, who today received the International Planetarium Society Technology & Innovation Award 2020 for his innovative use of fulldome film as a creative medium! Also receiving...
Elevate Entertainment Changes Company Name to Cosm
Elevate Entertainment, parent company of Spitz, Inc. and Evans & Sutherland, embarked upon an extensive journey to identify and build a transformational brand. After months of research and careful consideration, the company changed their name to Cosm. The new...
Apollo 13 in SciDome
50 years ago this evening, the Apollo 13 spacecraft had its great "Houston, we've had a problem" moment. Apollo 13 is rendered in SciDome Preview Suite, with models representing the spacecraft both before and after panel #4 on the...
Venus and the Pleiades April 3
There is an upcoming event in the evening sky that is worth notifying your colleagues about on social media this week. Venus is going to pass in front of the Pleiades star cluster on Friday, April 3rd. The neat thing about it is that this happens every 8 years, to the...
Simulating Starlink Satellite Constellation in SciDome
I hope you've heard about the Starlink constellation of satellites that is being put into orbit this year by SpaceX. Starlink is a global network that will provide satellite internet services with better speed and lower latency than current satellite internet. The...
Kepler’s Second Law Right Before Your Eyes!
Recently Spitz (thanks to Software Architect, Clint Weisbrod) implemented new guide lines in Starry Night, graphically linking the Sun and planets (see the fall 2018 Spitz Newsletter and the Copernican Method). This inspired me to consider an animated,...
Apollo Moon Panoramas in SciDome
Thanks to Mary MacDonald at the Christa McAulliffe Center planetarium in Framingham, MA for sending me in this direction. 50 years after Apollo 11, there are still things to be discovered in the rock samples that were brought back. This week there is some news from...
New Horizons and Ultima Thule
Just after midnight on January 1st, the New Horizons spacecraft will have its close encounter with the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, also known as (486958) 2014 MU69. Since New Horizons flew by Pluto in July 2015 it has been preparing for this moment. Ultima Thule...
Simulating Apollo 8 on SciDome
Tomorrow, Friday, will be the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 8, the first crewed space flight to orbit the Moon. You can simulate Apollo 8, and the other eight Apollo missions that went to the Moon, on your SciDome. Apollo 8 mission patch, showing the...
Solar System Scale: Copernicus’ Method
Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473 – 1543) paradigm-changing work de Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) famously laid the groundwork for the overthrow of the geocentric universe that had held sway for millennia. But what many people...
Sulawesi Earthquake in The Layered Earth
When we've been discussing applications of Starry Night in the dome, there was usually little need to worry about the human element, but with The Layered Earth (TLE) this is different. Most of the layers we use and stories we're going to tell are about consequences...
Mission Impossible: Ghost Particle
Earlier this month, another "multi-messenger" announcement was made of the discovery of a new astronomical outburst by different instruments that study different parts of the universe. The first major multi-messenger astronomy discovery was announced last year after...
Spitz Fulldome Curriculum Volume 3 Overview
I’m excited to announce that Volume 3 of the Spitz Fulldome Curriculum is being released to all SciDome users, and will of course be automatically incorporated into all future SciDome installations. We thought that this would be an opportune time to give a very brief...
Visitor from interstellar space
By now I hope you're heard about the interstellar interloper that's been passing through the inner solar system recently. This asteroid, which has been named 'Oumuamua, is the first-ever discovered object that has been observed coming into the solar system from...
Gravity Waves From Neutron Star Collision
On August 17th, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or "LIGO", detected gravity waves produced by the merger of two neutron stars. There are lots of good takes on this story, and it's important that we keep retelling it in interesting ways. This...
Football and Astronomy
As the NFL season gets into gear (Go Bills!) it's time to mention football's deep connections with astronomy. The 1927 Broadway musical Good News, which gave us the popular song "The Moon Belongs To Everyone", is about the division in college life between sports and...