Planetarium beginning to show its age

Working on ways to update an integral facility, graduate students and professors in the astronomy program at UCLA are actively fund-raising for a building that is becoming increasingly in need of repair.

Offering free shows to students every week, the UCLA planetarium has been a valuable tool, educating UCLA students and the surrounding community since its construction was finished in 1957. Since then, the building has housed three different star projectors, each successive one increasing in cost with new technology.

“The building’s interior is in need of renovation, especially the seats and the flooring,” said Alaina Henry, a UCLA astronomy graduate student. “The equipment also needs to be repaired or replaced with all the new technology available,” she said.

The planetarium’s last major upgrade was in 1973, which included the purchase of the current sky projector, Viewlex Mark IIA. This projector was state-of-the-art at the time, with its coverage of the entire celestial sphere, projecting about 4,000 stars on the dome’s ceiling.

Star projectors recreate the night sky in a larger-than-life presentation, by showing many stars that are otherwise impossible to see in Los Angeles due to light pollution. Light pollution is the effect of the bright city lights that prevent the visibility of fainter stars.

The projector also has other capabilities, such as “looking at winter constellations during the summer and other seasonal constellations at any time of the year,” said Emily Rice, a UCLA graduate student and planetarium coordinator. In a sense, one can travel the world while remaining in one of the 51 seats in the planetarium with the projector’s ability of generating the night sky from any perspective on earth.

Though the current projector has such capabilities, the effects of aging have taken their toll. The sky projector is missing essential components, including moon and planet projection. Aging parts on the control panel and computer projection for multimedia shows also need to be replaced.

Recently, a consulting company that works with the company that built the planetarium evaluated costly maintenance repairs.

“Private donations are always welcome,” said Karen Peterson, another UCLA graduate student and planetarium coordinator. “It would be wonderful to associate the name of a substantial donor with the planetarium,” added Rice. Despite the need for repairs, the planetarium still attracts many people in the community. Shows are given at 8 p.m. every Wednesday during the fall, winter and spring quarters of the UCLA academic calendar.

Many show topics are available in the planetarium’s library. Two of the most popular topics are “Life in the Universe,” and “A Tour of the Solar System and Beyond,” written by UCLA graduate students. The planetary staff hopes to expand the variety of topics and update shows with new research findings.

On clear nights, following the hour-long shows, visitors can look through one of the department telescopes at a variety of celestial objects currently in the sky, such as planets, nebulae, and star clusters.

Public shows are available to all students, the Los Angeles community, and educational groups. An introductory astronomy course requires a lab where the students watch one of the planetarium shows.

Private viewings are available upon request, where the show’s topics and its duration can be tailored to the audience’s requests.

One recent group of visitors consisted of pre-schoolers, who were interested in learning more about the galaxy. The show included basics of astronomy, including the properties of planets and the distance between the earth and the stars. “We also had to comfort those who were afraid of the dark,” said Peterson, who has done several shows for groups of younger children.

The topics of public shows change every week to keep attracting an audience, which provides an incentive for the funding for the planetarium’s maintenance.

New visitors are always encouraged to see shows at the convenient location on the eighth floor of the Math Sciences building.

More information can be found on the department’s Web site: www.astro.ucla.edu/planetarium.