Mueller Planetarium hosts immersive dome technology

For the first time in its history, Mueller Planetarium at the University of Nebraska State Museum will offer an immersive full dome show experience for those who attend Astronomy Day Saturday.

The spherical mirror system projector uses a 31.5-foot wide dome as a giant screen that can put the audience right into the digital atmosphere of anything being shown. It can be the surface of the moon, outer space, three-dimensional DNA structures, the chemical structure of coffee, architectural projects or Ice Age landscapes.

Jack Dunn, the planetarium coordinator, borrowed the projector from East Coast Control Systems, a planetarium technology supplier. The device will be returned to the owner after the weekend, and Mueller will go back to its own conventional technology - star projector, slide show and standard video.

Not only can the system be a wonder for the audience. It is also exciting for the planetarium staff, consisting of Dunn and volunteers.

"The beauty of my system is that it is built up out of commodity components," said Paul Burke of the University of Western Australia in Perth, the creator of the projector. "Planetariums with staff with some modest technical skills, like Jack (Dunn), can mostly set things up for themselves."

The closest full dome theaters for Nebraskans to currently attend are in Des Moines, Denver and Chicago, Dunn said.

"It's something that's the next logical step for the museum to pursue," said Mark Harris, associate director of the University of Nebraska State Museum. "This is something that we really want to do but simply don't have funding for."

Setting up a mirror system in Mueller would probably cost about $10,000, Dunn said.

Its price is about 15 times less than the fish-eye lenses, used for the same purpose, and more than a hundred times less than building an Imax theater.

So, while the University of Nebraska at Kearney is setting up its brand new planetarium privately sponsored by Sen. Ben Nelson, the already existing Mueller Planetarium is hoping to find donors to take its technology to the next level, Dunn said.

"Full dome video is very hard to excite people about without them actually seeing it," Burke said.

That is why Mueller Planetarium, will show "Black Holes," a digital movie loaned from the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, on Saturday and Sunday.

"Our goal is to have (the spherical mirror system) in within a year," Harris said. "It's doable."