Affordable Digital Planetariums with WorldWide Telescope

TL;DR

This paper presents a cost-effective method to convert traditional planetariums into digital, interactive educational tools using off-the-shelf equipment and free software, significantly enhancing public science engagement.

Contribution

The authors introduce a low-cost approach to digitize existing planetariums with free software, expanding educational capabilities and interactivity.

Findings

Cost to digitize is approximately $40,000.

Enables exploration of multi-wavelength sky data and 3D visualizations.

Provides a scalable, accessible digital planetarium solution.

Abstract

Digital planetariums can provide a broader range of educational experiences than the more classical planetariums that use star-balls. This is because of their ability to project images, content from current research and the 3D distribution of the stars and galaxies. While there are hundreds of planetariums in the country the reason that few of these are full digital is the cost. In collaboration with Microsoft Research (MSR) we have developed a way to digitize existing planetariums for approximately \$40,000 using software freely available. We describe here how off the shelf equipment, together with MSR's WorldWide Telescope client can provide a rich and truly interactive experience. This will enable students and the public to pan though multi-wavelength full-sky scientific data sets, explore 3d visualizations of our Solar System (including trajectories of millions of minor planets), near-by stars, and the SDSS galaxy catalog.