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Planetarium Info

Overview

The Georgia Southern University Planetarium offers shows available for Georgia Southern University students, public/private/home school groups – grades Pre-K – 12, scout groups, and adults by reservation only on certain weekdays; contact the Planetarium for more information.

There are also monthly Public Evenings & Events on exciting astronomy topics and full dome presentations scheduled each year with telescopic observing outdoors, weather permitting.

The Digistar Full Dome Digital Planetarium System

  • The Digistar 4, installed in December 2011 can immerse students and visitors into the night sky and out to the edge of the known Universe. It replaced the original 1960’s Spitz A4 optical mechanical star projector.
  • An upgrade to the Digistar 5 system was in Fall 2013.
  • The real-time, 3D graphics of the Digistar 5 render complex, highly-detailed models in real time and displays them on the dome.
  • The Digistar 5 plays full dome movies, filling the entire dome with spectacular images and videos for all ages in many topics.
  • Georgia Southern has self-produced shows for the Digistar 5 used in classes and presentations. The hardware allows the professor completely customizable and unprecedented means to present astronomical concepts.

Seating

During the summer of 2012, the Planetarium installed state-of-the-art planetarium seating, replacing bleacher-style seating used until spring, 2012. The individual seating provides arm rests and adjustable back pitch angles to provide guests with a comfortable viewing angle of the dome. The planetarium can seat up to 63 visitors with 2 ADA wheelchair spaces.  Due to fire code safety for indoor events, we ask that you do not bring strollers into the planetarium. 

ViewSpace

The lobby of the Georgia Southern University Planetarium is equipped with ViewSpace, a streaming, multimedia presentation from the Space Telescope Science Institute. ViewSpace provides a portal with daily updates in astronomy from the Hubble Space Telescope and missions exploring our Solar System and beyond.

Educational Outreach

Approximately 8,000-10,000 students and guests visit the Georgia Southern University Planetarium each year. The Planetarium offers educational presentations and outreach for educators and their students on science standards related to astronomy and space science.

Last updated: 4/20/2022

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