Buehler Planetarium and Observatory

Our world-class planetarium has seating for 210 under a 70-foot dome projection screen. A special lift provides access to the second-story seating for those who would rather not make the climb up the curving stairways.

Two star projectors team up to produce a stunningly realistic sky and 3D computer effects. The Minolta Alpha Infinium shines 28,000 little points of light to create the feel of a real skyful of stars, and has auxiliary projectors to add the Sun and Moon. The Evans and Sutherland Digistar is a computer graphics projector capable of flying us through a 3D representation of our universe. The Digistar also is used for any graphic requiring only dots and lines, such as constellation overlays.

A superb audio system is capable of achieving concert-level sound for rock laser shows, and putting the feeling behind explosions and rocket liftoffs. The high quality of the sound in our planetarium is something we are all proud of.

Five video projectors display moving images in the front half of the planetarium. 32 slide projectors are used for dome-filling "All-Sky" images, wraparound panoramas, and to show high-quality images.

Two 3.5 Watt lasers shine bright and colorful light through five projection ports. These machines add animations and special effects that can't be easily achieved in any other way. Plus, they help to make our laser shows some of the best in the biz.