Planetarium Projector Installed in Frank Family Science Center
When the Frank Family Science Center was completed in 2000, there was one gap in the state-of-the-art facility: the college hadn’t been able to fund the estimated $750,000 to buy a digital planetarium projector for Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium. Now, eight years later, technology has improved to the point that Guilford was able to purchase a projector that’s both far cheaper than the original and a great deal more versatile.
On Oct. 25 , a capacity crowd filled the auditorium to watch Thom Espinola, Glaxo Wellcome professor of physics, demonstrate the new equipment. The projector, mounted on the back wall, uses a curved mirror to bounce a distorted “fish-eye” picture onto the domed ceiling, where it appears normally.
“This wasn’t available eight years ago," says Espinola. The planetarium’s original plans called for a floor-mounted projector that could be lowered into the auditorium floor when the space was needed for other lectures or performances.
That projector would only have been able to show images of the night sky. One of the advantages of the new system is its flexibility, Espinola says. “Whatever you can get a fish-eye image of, we can put on the projector,” he says. As students and faculty get better at generating images, Espinola envisions taking a class or a public audience on a tour of the surface of the moon, for instance, or rafting through the Grand Canyon.
The new projector will also be easy to upgrade as technology continues to improve, as opposed to an analog machine that grows obsolete after only a few years. It can even be adapted for use as a regular projector in a classroom if the planetarium ever replaces it. The entire set-up – projector, computer and software – cost $15,000.
Espinola typed a command into the computer’s keyboard, and the audience of everyone from physics students to local families and their children zoomed through the night sky, travelling to the distant Andromeda galaxy. Moments later, Espinola whisked them to the North Pole, comparing the spacing of visible stars and planets to what could be seen at Greensboro’s latitude. After eight long years, the auditorium was truly complete.
Oct. 31, 2008