WSU Planetarium
The WSU Planetarium features a digital fulldome projection system. During a sky tour, audiences interact with the projected sky and the docent to learn about astronomy. The dome is a 24 foot diameter plastic-laminated glass-fiber dome installed in Sloan Hall in March, 1962. In 1968 the projector was upgraded to the Spitz A3-P. In 2014, an interim spheric mirror digital projection system was added, upgraded to 4k resolution in summer 2016. It is used for WSU astronomy classes, school groups, other groups, and evening public shows. If you have a group of twelve or more, you can arrange a free, one-hour sky tour during business hours. Contact Dr. Guy Worthey at gworthey(at)wsu.edu to arrange.
2023 Summer
$5 public shows
June 9 & 11: Selected Shorts
June 16 & 18: Two Small Pieces of Glass
June 23 & 25: Red Eye to the Stars
June 30 & July 2: Rock the Rocks
We are gratified that our series of informative and entertaining shows for the general public have proven popular. From 2014 to 2016, we installed a spheric-mirror digital projection system to enable a whole new layer of flexibility in the star theater, including the capability to show fulldome movies. Our dome was painted a friendly gray color in 2019 to reduce light echoes and improve contrast.
Funds from ticket sales maintain and improve our surround sound and full dome visual systems and guarantee an offering of even more spectacular public events in the future. The WSU Foundation will be happy to assist you if you wish to accelerate the upgrades with a financial gift (donate to “astronomy development fund”).
Our offerings:
- Day time groups ($0)
- Evening public shows ($5)
- Corporate facility rental
Currently scheduled by gworthey(at)wsu.edu
June 2023 Shows
Selected Shorts
Friday, June 9, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, June 11, 5 p.m.
A tour of June night skies, followed by a curated selection of WSU Planetarium’s best short videos. Be amused, amazed, and enlightened.
Two Small Pieces of Glass
Friday, June 16, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, June 18, 5 p.m.
A tour of June night skies, followed by a fulldome video presentation by the National Science Foundation about the telescope and its impact on human society.
Red-Eye to the Stars
Friday, June 23, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, June 25, 5 p.m.
A tour of June night skies, followed by a fulldome video presentation about NASA’s Sofia mission: an infrared telescope in a custom Boeing 747.
Rock the Rocks
Friday, June 30, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, July 2, 5 p.m.
A full-length, raucous ode to the planets with computer-generated 3d imagery. Features rock songs, played loud. A perennial planetarium favorite.
Directions
Directions from Stadium & Main: Turn up Stadium, immediate left at Nevada, immediate left at Washington, turn right on Spokane Street. Street spots and nearby parking lots are legal to park in after-hours. Otherwise, please arrange a temporary permit from parking.wsu.edu (the zone you want is called “green 3.”) The pedestrian bridge is the most convenient entry; come across the bridge, come in the building, then turn right. Twenty paces later, turn left and head down the hall to Sloan 231.
September 2022 shows
Tickets at the door are $5 (cash or check, no credit). Lap-sitting children (4 and under) are free with adult purchase. Masks are encouraged (it’s cozy in the planetarium) but not required. Seating is limited to 45 persons. Scroll down for detailed directions to the WSU Planetarium, 231 Sloan Hall.
Distant Worlds – Alien Life?
7:00 p.m., Friday, Sept 9
&
5:00 p.m. Sunday, Sept 11
A tour of September night skies, followed by the fulldome planetarium production “Distant Worlds – Alien Life?”
“Distant Worlds – Alien Life?” explores the possibility of life on other planets. It gives the limits of biology as we know it, then intersects those constraints with what we know about Milky Way exoplanets. Imaginative visualizations of possible life forms are animated in a fulldome experience.
“Distant Worlds – Alien Life?”, originally “Ferne Welten – fremdes Leben?”, is a joint production by the planetariums in Münster, Bochum, Kiel, Mannheim, Osnabrück und Wolfsburg, produced at LWL-Planetarium Münster.
Red Eye to the Stars
7:00 p.m., Friday, Sept 16
&
5:00 p.m., Sunday, Sept 18
A tour of September night skies, followed by the fulldome planetarium production “Red-Eye to the Stars.”
“Red-Eye to the Stars” is a fulldome exploration of NASA’s flying observatory SOFIA.
On a clear evening, a jumbo jet takes heading into the sunset on California’s Pacific coast. Once the Boeing 747SP has reached its cruising altitude in the stratosphere, a hatch in the back of the plane opens to reveal the view into the depths of space.
“SOFIA”, the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, gathers thermal radiation from distant celestial objects unobstructed by the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere. Among other things, it can be used to observe the nurseries of young stars in distant gas nebulae that remain hidden in the spectrum of visible light.
Join a film crew on a red-eye flight aboard the flying observatory SOFIA to unravel the mysteries of star birth from 50,000 feet above the sea.
October 2022 Shows
Einstein’s Gravity Playlist
Friday, Oct 7, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, Oct 9, 5 p.m.
A tour of October night skies, followed by the fulldome movie “Einstein’s Gravity Playlist,” produced by Montana State University, all about gravitational waves and their exotic sources, such as inspiralling black holes.
Two Small Pieces of Glass
Friday, October 14, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, October 16, 5 p.m.
A tour of October night skies, followed by “Two Small Pieces of Glass,” a celebration of the telescope and the amazing discoveries this invention has enabled.
Haunted Skies
Friday, October 21, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, October 23, 5 p.m.
Haunted Skies is a star show, slide show, costume party, and humor-filled history lesson all in one. Test-drive your Halloween costume (for a prize!) and learn about the holiday’s origins and related astronomy.
Rock the Rocks
Friday, October 28, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, October 30, 5 p.m.
The planets – set to music. Join us for a raucous and rocking musical tour of the solar system. We’ll crank up the volume and shake Sloan Hall on a trippin’ trip through outer space.
November 2022 shows
The Dark Matter Mystery
7:00 p.m., Friday, November 4
&
5:00 p.m. Sunday, November 6
Our docent will give you a guided tour of November night skies, including what to expect for the 11/8 total lunar eclipse. This is followed by “The Dark Matter Mystery,” a fulldome production.
What keeps galaxies together? What are the building blocks of the Universe? What makes the Universe look the way it looks today? Researchers all around the world try to answer these questions. We know today that approximately a quarter of the Universe is filled with a mysterious glue: dark matter. We know that it is out there. But we have no idea what it is made out of.
This planetarium show takes you on the biggest quest of contemporary astrophysics. You will see why we know that dark matter exists, and how this search is one of the most challenging and exciting searches science has to offer. Join the scientists on their hunt for dark matter with experiments in space and deep underground. Will they be able to solve the dark matter mystery?
From Earth to the Universe
7:00 p.m., Friday, November 11
&
5:00 p.m. Sunday, November 13
Our docent will give you a guided tour of November night skies. This is followed by “From Earth to the Universe,” a fulldome production.
“From the Earth to the Universe” is a stunning 30-minute voyage through time and space that conveys, through an arresting combination of sights and sounds, the Universe revealed to us by science.
A production of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Supernova Planetarium and Visitor Center.
December 2022 shows
Out There
7:00 p.m., Friday, December 2
&
5:00 p.m. Sunday, December 4
A tour of December night skies, followed by the fulldome movie “Out There: The Quest for Extrasolar Worlds”
After millennia of dreaming about other planets, only in the last 30 years has astronomy confirmed that the Milky Way galaxy contains not just hundreds or thousands, but hundreds or thousands of millions of planets. And our Galaxy is one of hundreds of millions of galaxies in the observable universe.
It’s big out there, folks.
Distant Worlds – Alien Life?
7:00 p.m., Friday, December 9
&
5:00 p.m. Sunday, December 11
A tour of December night skies, followed by the fulldome planetarium production “Distant Worlds – Alien Life?”
“Distant Worlds – Alien Life?” explores the possibility of life on other planets. It gives the limits of biology as we know it, then intersects those constraints with what we know about Milky Way exoplanets. Imaginative visualizations of possible life forms are animated in a fulldome experience.
“Distant Worlds – Alien Life?”, originally “Ferne Welten – fremdes Leben?”, is a joint production by the planetariums in Münster, Bochum, Kiel, Mannheim, Osnabrück und Wolfsburg, produced at LWL-Planetarium Münster.
”Cycle” and ”The Incredible Sun”
Friday, December 16, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, December 18, 5 p.m.
A tour of December skies, followed by two short fulldome movies. “Cycles” displays time-lapse fisheye lens imagery. To speed time up compared with human experience allows hard-to-notice natural cycles to become visible. “The Incredible Sun” is a mission-based movie that shows the sun at many wavelengths outside the range of human vision.
January 2023 Shows
Space Opera
Friday, Jan 6, 7:00 p.m.
&
Sunday, Jan 8, 5:00 p.m.
A tour of January night skies, followed by the 40-minute fulldome movie “Space Opera.” Set to the music of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” viewers buckle into a spaceship and take off on a spacey voyage of exploration. (Note: briefly shows “old masters” paintings of unclothed mythological figures.) This movie is at full 4k resolution.
Solar System Sensation
Friday, Jan 13, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, Jan 15, 5 p.m.
This in-house production uses on-the-fly computer-generated imagery of solar system objects to take audiences on a grand tour of the solar system.
Einstein’s Gravity Playlist
Friday, Jan 20, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, Jan 22, 5 p.m.
A tour of January night skies, followed by the fulldome movie “Einstein’s Gravity Playlist.” Join graduate student Lucia in her quest to learn all about gravitational waves and their mind-bogglingly powerful sources such as inspiralling black holes.
From Earth to the Universe
Friday, Jan 27, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, Jan 29, 5 p.m.
Our docent will give you a guided tour of January night skies. This is followed by “From Earth to the Universe,” a fulldome production.
“From the Earth to the Universe” is a stunning 30-minute voyage through time and space that conveys, through an arresting combination of sights and sounds, the Universe revealed to us by science.
A production of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Supernova Planetarium and Visitor Center.
February 2023 Shows
Sunstruck!
Friday, February 3, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, February 5, 5 p.m.
A docent-led tour of February skies, followed by the fulldome movie “Sunstruck!” Travel back to the beginning of time and experience the birth of the Sun. Discover how it came to support life, how it threatens life as we know it, and how its energy will one day fade away.
The Hot and Energetic Universe
Friday, February 10, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, February 12, 5 p.m.
A docent-led tour of February night skies, followed by the fulldome production “The Hot and Energetic Universe.”
High energy astrophysics plays a key role in understanding the universe. This radiation reveals powerful processes in a hot and violent universe. The fulldome film probes hot gas in clusters of galaxies, which are the most massive objects in the universe. It also probes hot gas accreting around supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. We also discover important information about our own galaxy: neutron stars, supernova remnants and stars like our sun which emit copious amounts of high energy radiation.
The Sun: Our Living Star
Friday, February 17, 7 pm
&
Sunday, February 19, 5 pm
A guided tour of February night skies and the fulldome planetarium presentation “The Sun: Our Living Star.”
The Sun has shone on our world for four and a half billion years. The light that warms our skin today has been felt by every person who has ever lived.
It is our nearest star and our planet’s powerhouse, the source of the energy that drives our winds, our weather and all life.
The passage of the Sun’s fiery disc across the sky — day by day, month by month — was the only way to keep track of time for countless past civilizations.
Don’t be fooled by the terminology; although it is a typical dwarf star, the Sun consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen each second and is 500 times as massive as all the planets combined.
Discover the secrets of our star in this planetarium show and experience never-before-seen images of the Sun’s violent surface in immersive fulldome format.
The Phantom of the Universe
Friday, Feb 24, 7 pm
&
Sunday, Feb 26, 5 pm
A docent-led tour of February night skies and “The Phantom of the Universe,” a fulldome movie about dark matter.
From the journey of protons racing through the world’s largest particle collider in Europe to up-close views of the Big Bang and emergent cosmos, Phantom of the Universe is a new fulldome planetarium show designed to immerse audiences in the search for dark matter. A collaboration of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, University of Texas at Arlington, Michigan State University, IFIC at University of Valencia, as well as other institutions. It is narrated by Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton.
March 2023 Shows
Tickets at the door are $5 (cash or check, no credit). Lap-sitting children (4 and under) are free with adult purchase. Masks are still encouraged (it’s cozy in the planetarium) but not required. Seating is limited to 45, and we will be sanitizing between shows. Scroll down for detailed directions to the WSU Planetarium, 231 Sloan Hall.
Out There: The Quest for Extrasolar Worlds
Friday, March 3, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, March 5, 5 p.m.
A tour of March night skies, followed by the fulldome movie “Out There: The Quest for Extrasolar Worlds,” an update on the rapidly evolving search for planets around other stars in the Milky Way.
Distant Worlds – Alien Life?
Friday, March 24, 7 p.m.
&
Sunday, March 26, 5 p.m.
A tour of March night skies, followed by a fulldome immersive video, “Distant Worlds – Alien Life?” This short film explores the topic of astrobiology and imagines what lifeforms might be like on some of the new worlds that astronomers have discovered.