Exploring the Universe

By Robbie Pangilinan

With the coming of the digital mobile planetarium to the country, exploring the universe has never been easier and better. Diliman Preparatory School (DPS) opens the Philippines’ first ever and only 7-meter diameter digital mobile planetarium as part of the DPS Astronomy Center, a complete resource for astronomy education in the Philippines.

Wikipedia defines a planetarium as a theater built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. Almost all planetariums have large dome-shaped projection screens to simulate the ‘motions of the heavens’. Viewers can watch realistic images of stars, planets and other celestial objects. The Hayden Planetarium is the largest planetarium with a 20-meter dome seating 430 people. There are also three-meter portable domes.

In the Philippines, there are several planetariums, the most popular of which is the National Museum Planetarium at the Rizal Park Complex. It has a 16-meter inner dome where 8,500 stars are projected. The projector can project the night sky as it appeared in the past or will appear in the future. The planetarium can seat a maximum of 310 viewers with four daily shows. In addition, the octagonal wall of the lobby has three-dimensional glass diorama exhibits and photos of mysterious inner space objects.
The 88-seater PAGASA Planetarium at the Science Garden has a projector that can project 3,550 stars, five major planets, the Sun and the Moon. It also has an ordinary slide projector for solar system slide showing. The planetarium offers educational tours for elementary and high school students where they can learn about the universe, its creation, history and possible future as well as the development of the solar system.
DPS opens the first mobile digital planetarium system in the country. Bamm Gabriana, Astronomy Consultant of the Discover and Probe the Skies Foundation, Inc., explains, “A digital planetarium is a computer with specialized software connected to a high-resolution fish-eye projector. We can update the software by connecting the computer to the internet. We can even download data about comet and asteroids that were discovered, say, yesterday!”

The digital mobile planetarium, with a 7-meter dome, is the largest in the country. Because it is digital, the planetarium has capabilities that non-digital planetariums do not have. These are the ability to see how the sky looks like from other places on earth and from the surface of other planets; zoom in to planets, stars clusters, nebulas, and galaxies; quickly see how the sky looks like on the day you were born; show constellation artwork from several cultures; show constellation lines, boundaries, and special lines; show astronomical coordinate systems (both equatorial and horizontal); and show information about any selected object in the sky.

The SM Mall of Asia’s Science Discovery Center also has a digital planetarium called Digistar which has a 15-meter dome. Digistar is a fully interactive, three-dimensional planetarium with all-dome video playback, complete with star field and astronomical capabilities, with digital surround sound for total viewing pleasure. But Bamm says that Digistar does not have any planetarium shows. “It's just like watching a movie in a full-dome screen,” he clarifies.

The DPS mobile planetarium is far beyond compare to the old planetariums. “The difference is astronomical,” Bamm says. You have to come to our planetarium and experience it. All my explanations will not give you an idea of how good it is unless you see it for yourself,” is Bamm’s encouragement to viewers.

This planetarium is all set to change the world of learning and the way we have looked at the universe. It will be brought directly to schools so instead of students paying for a bus and traveling all the way to the planetarium’s location, they just pay for the entrance fees.

Planetariums make people experience and explore the vast universe. The whole wide cosmos becomes within reach through technological advances such as the digital mobile planetarium. #