NEWS

MSU's Abrams Planetarium gets interactive as part of summer renovation

MSU Planetarium gets touch screens as part of summer renovation

RJ Wolcott
Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING - The sun has set on Abrams Planetarium’s 2015-16 season.

Upon rising for the 2016-17 season in September, visitors will notice new interactive touch screens, an electronic display previewing upcoming shows and fresh coats of paint as part of this summer's renovation project. A handicap-accessible ramp is also planned.

Max Perry paints on Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University. The planetarium is getting a facelift these next few weeks, including repainting the show area, installing handicap accessible ramps as well as touch-screen displays which were made possible via grant dollars.

The improvements will pair nicely alongside the planetarium’s Digistar 5 projection system that was added two summers ago, said Shannon Schmoll , the planetarium’s director.

“We’re still exploring our options with the new system,” she said, “But we can make full-color images to create more exciting programs for our visitors.”

The $500,000 system is a vast improvement over the planetarium’s Digistar 2 system from the 1990s, which could only display images in green. In its last year with the Digistar 2 system, the planetarium drew slightly more than 20,000 visitors. With the Digistar 5 system last year, more than 26,000 people visited, from adults to busloads of children on class trips.

Adding three touch screen displays inside the lobby will get kids interacting with stars and galaxies before they set foot inside the planetarium’s domed viewing area. The displays were purchased using a $4,500 grant from the Dart Foundation.

Pulling up Abram’s new “Back to the Moon for good,” program, Scholl uses her finger to scroll through historical images and audio recordings from the NASA moon trips dating back to the late 1960s. Programs on galaxies and how they appear differently based on which frequencies of light they are viewed through are also planned, Schmoll said.

Max Perry, left, and Ryan White, right, paint on Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University. The planetarium is getting a facelift in the coming weeks, including repainting the show area, installing handicap accessible ramps as well as touch-screen displays made possible with grant dollars.

The changes are expected to go over well with the dozens of participant’s in the Spartan Young Astronomers Club, said Renee Leone, who runs the club alongside Schmoll, co-founder Roxanne Truhn and Okemos High School student Bryce Kobe.

“It’s relatively new technology coming to the planetarium and we plan to integrate as much of it as possible,” Leone said.

Children ages 8 to 12 can participate in an entire season’s worth of activities or jump in for a session or two starting this fall. Topics range from the formation of the moon to how it got its numerous craters.

Ryan White paints on Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at Abrams Planetarium on Michigan State University's campus. The planetarium is getting a facelift these next few weeks, including repainting the show area, installing handicap accessible ramps as well as touch-screen displays which were made possible via grant dollars.

Staff will also be adding more artifacts from Talbert “Ted” and Leota Abrams, whose significant contributions made the planetarium’s construction and debut in 1964 possible.

Abrams Planetarium will reopen to the public on Sept. 23 for its inaugural show on the international competition to return to the moon. Ticket prices this coming season will be $4 for adults, $3.50 for students and seniors, and $3 for children under the age of 12.

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.

Getting involved at the Abrams Planetarium

For more information on the planetarium, visit http://www.abramsplanetarium.org/   

For information on the Spartan Young Astronomers Club, email spartanyac@gmail.com