Tides Revisited and Explained
A historical lesson in Volume 2 of the Fulldome Curriculum is the astronomical aspect of the Boston Tea Party. As we learn, Colonists, furious at the tea tax, tossed chests of tea into Boston Harbor on the night of December 16, 1773. Eyewitnesses noted that the chests...
Spitz Fulldome Curriculum – Volume 2
After years of development, Volume 2 of the Spitz Fulldome Curriculum has been released as a free supplement to all SciDome sites. The curriculum covers a wide gamut of subjects (see contents in sidebar) and gives educators a new library of slides, animations, and...
Fundraising for Digital Planetariums
Planetarium technology isn’t the only thing that’s changed from the last heyday of planetarium installations in the '60s and '70s. 21st century fundraising is also a new concern for today’s educational planetariums. Today, a planetarium upgrade (or construction of a...
American History in the Planetarium
Some of the richest resources of astronomical events and history are the articles of Dr. Donald W. Olson of Texas State University at San Marcos. He has written on an incredible number of topics, including this subject, published in the March 1998 issue of Sky and...
Saving the Arlington Planetarium – A Fundraising Success Story
We often hear about planetariums closing or cutting back due to lack of funding. The David M. Brown Planetarium in Arlington Virginia was one of them, until a group of local advocates got involved and launched an effort to save their local planetarium. They were so...
Using Distance Spheres for Illustrating Stars, Black Holes, and the Speed of Light
Distance Spheres included in Starry Night allow “Cosmic Zoom” sequences in our domes. However, I also use them to show audiences scale sizes of stars, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, and the speed of light. In a previous article I described the upcoming...