The Facility
The Ott Planetarium star theater seats 60 persons under a 9.1 meter (30 foot) diameter perforated aluminum dome. Images and video are projected onto the dome with a single projector located in the center of the room. The star theater is equipped with 5.1 channel surround sound.
In December 2004 the Ott Planetarium upgraded its main projection system from a 1969 Spitz A4 to a Konica Minolta Mediaglobe fulldome video system. The Mediaglobe upgrade replaced the star projector and over 30 slide and special effects projectors. Shortly after the Mediaglobe upgrade, planetarium staff began producing original content in the new digital format.
In 2006 the planetarium received a $1 Million U.S. Congressional Earmark to fund the development of educational programs. Part of this grant was used to purchase a 128 CPU render cluster and workstations for star show production.
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