Mobile domes are an important part of planetarium outreach and serve countless people who otherwise would never experience astronomy and the stars under the magic of the dome.
Resources here have been gathered by the Portable Planetarium Committee. Susan Reynolds Button, committee chair, also is the long-time writer of Mobile News, which appears in each edition of Planetarian.
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The Lhoumeau Sky-System is a concept of a planetarium projector that can be made at low cost for small and medium planetariums. All instructions are shared under
a Creative Commons license. |
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The University of Washington's Astronomy Department (Seattle, Washington), based on experience in establishing its own mobile planetarium outreach,
has published a Do-It-Yourself guide to making making your own. Follow this link to arXiv at Cornell University. |
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DIY Planetarium
A dome-building guide from Adam Goss in Broomfield, Colorado. Click on the picture of the cover to download the pdf document.
Also check out his website at www.diyplanetarium.com
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Astronomy For Thinkers
A site designed by a science teacher on the elementary and junior high level, this newly-redesigned site by John Krieger has been updated and re-titled Astronomy For Thinkers.
Although aimed primarily for science educations and home school teachers, the site also is open to anyone interested in astronomy and sharing the beauty of the sky.
In the articles section you'll find a number of downloadable materials, and also A Digital Home Planetarium: How to make a home
planetarium using cardboard, a mirror, and a digital projector.
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British Fulldome Institute (BFI)
Mario Di Maggio, director of 360° Digital Planetarium Experiences: his company, Immersive Experiences, does not create fulldome content, it has compiled a comprehensive list of all the free fulldome content currently available, so that small dome operators like us all (with tiny budgets and struggling to survive-especially after the pandemic school closures) can find free quality content to show our audiences. His British Fulldome Institute (BFI) list includes: FREE Educational Content Available, FREE Artistic Content Available, FREE Fulldome Content Available Directly from Producers, AFFORDABLE 4K Solar System Educational Animations, and AFFORDABLE Image Sequence Scanner for Windows and macOS. Go to: https://bit.ly/3VRhD65; Email: mario.dimaggio@gmail.com
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Derek Demeter
This planetarium director and content creator, at the Emil Buehler Planetarium in Florida, will share his full dome videos and photos for free to all planetarians to use: Email: demeterd@seminolestate.edu |
Lionel Ruiz
Will help in dubbing free shows. Lionel is planetarium director and content creator, at the Marseille Planetarium in France. He will share English scripts and Music & FX only audio files for most of existing free shows, as he was involved for most of them in his country, so you can build local versions of those shows. He will also share the contact email of each free show owner so you can send the final results to them; this must be done in order to make it available to any others in accordance with the legal terms of the license. For the list of free shows contact Lionel at Email: lionel.ruiz@live.fr ;http://phoenixprod.info/
Lionel can also help in building a computer generated voiceover in many languages if you can provide the proper translation.
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Pablo Carlos Budassi
His artwork is now available for the digital dome - and he has agreed to make some of the 4K images free to planetariums. He is very happy to have portable planetarium operators share his work with their audiences. Also, he has offered to work with a volunteer fulldome artist to animate some of his work. In return, the artist will receive free licenses to the animations. Lionel Ruiz made some videos (3 resolutions) with the work of Pablo. Email: lionel.ruiz@live.fr
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| SKY SIMULATOR Software This is a list of Free, Open Source and Commercial software for the planetarium http://www.lss-planetariums.info/index.php?lang=en&menu=simulator&page=simulator |
| International Astronomical Union’s Office of Astronomy Outreach The Office shares some outreach resources, including activities and images. High-quality resources can be submitted to be translated into different languages for dissemination. Just be aware that anything shared must be broadly useful, free use, and allow user-adaptation for local contexts. The best way to keep up to date is to subscribe to the regular newsletter that the Office publishes. The new May edition can be found here: https://mailchi.mp/iau/iauoutreachnewsletter_2023may1 You can find out more about the Office at https://www.iau.org/public/oao/ |
NSF’s NOIRLab
The National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) is the US national center for ground-based, nighttime optical astronomy. The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) operates these facilities and NSF’s NOIRLab under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF). https://noirlab.edu/public/videos/archive/category/fulldome/?nocache=true |
NASA’S Scientific Visualization Studio
A Fulldome Gallery of Visualizations in fulldome format for display in digital planetariums. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gallery/FulldomeGallery.html
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The One Sky Project
Each short film represents the perspective of a different culture or Indigenous society from around the globe. Each film stands alone as a short story or in combination as a longer narrative – organized
around themes of “Finding Patterns” and developing tools, or as we say, “To Seek Far.’ (Seen at the 2022 Imersa Summit in Montreal) https://www.oneskyproject.org
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Living in Balance
“The Abrams Planetarium collaborated with Dr. Beth LaPensée to create a planetarium show on Anishinaabe Star Knowledge. The script and art was created by Dr. LaPensée and the show heavily
features the Eastern dialect of Anishinaabemowin. It was narrated, reviewed, and approved by Anishinaabe elders and community members including Alphonse Pitawanakwat, Aarin Dokum, and Dr. Annette Lee. Abrams translated the assets
into a show using Gimp and Digistar 6 programming. We took the information from Dr. LaPensée to develop an educator guide that accompanies the show. We are distributing it for free or low cost for anyone who is interested.”
(If you need frames mailed to you on a drive there may be a small fee for processing that.) To preview or acquire the “Living in Balance” program contact Shannon Schmoll.
(seen at the GLPA 2022 Conference in Buffalo) schmolls@msu.edu |
Creative Planet
Free Fulldome Assets Fromto Enrich Your Planetarium`s Live
Shows - Maciej Ligowski (seen at Imersa)
https://creativeplanet.pl/en/free-fulldome-assets-from-creative- planet-to-enrich-your-planetariums-live-shows/
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Eclipse show "Totality!"
Free for just a format fee…English and Spanish audio, English and Spanish subtitles. Working on the Educator guide now. There is a full 23 minute version and a 10- minute version
for science nights and public events. More info and link to request show: https://space.rice.edu/eclipse/eclipse_show.html Details and link to full length preview:
https://eplanetarium.com/shows/ddome/hmns/totality/
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Philippe Chrusten
A HUBBLO producer of immersive and interactive experiences, has offered to work with a consortium of mobile domes to provide lower prices for their
products. Contact them if you have a consortium established and are seeking to use it to get a lower price. pc@hubblo.ca , https://hubblo.ca/en/
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Fulldome OnDemand
You can rent and stream fulldome movies using your web brouser: https://www.fulldomeondemand.com/.
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Data 2 Dome
Fulldome Movies, Fulldome Stills, Audio/Music, Flat Screen Videos, and Images/Graphics: https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/freemedia |
Voices from the Dome
An international project, open to all planetarium operators, to build a collection of short mp3 audio clips to use directly in planetarium shows or in professional development as exemplary dialogues
between experienced planetarium leaders and audiences: https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/voicesintro |
Pages of Stars
A collection of short audio clips (maximum 3-5 minutes each) that can easily be shared among planetarians using mp3 files: https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/pagesofstars |
Educational resources
Available online and of particular interest to planetarians and to others simply interested in astronomy/space science education: https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/edresources |
Live Interactive Shows
Resources for presenting live, interactive planetarium shows: https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/lips
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StarLab
The StarLab system was one of the first portable dome systems, and has released all of its cylinder manuals and curriculum free to the public. As a bonus, you can download grade-specific charts
that correlate the cylinders to the U.S. National Science Standars. You can download the cylinder manuals at https://www.starlab.com/classic-starlab/classic-starlab-cylinders/ ,
and can access the classic StarLab curriculum at https://www.starlab.com/classic-starlab/curriculum/ .
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The IPS Portable Planetarium Handbook
2002, Edited by Susan Button
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| Manufacturers of Portable Planetariums |
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| Mobile Domes in Business: Best Practices |
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| What Projector Should I Purchase? |
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April 13, 2024 Zoom Virtual Meeting
IPS Affiliates: Portable Planetarium Contacts - Find assistance in your own country
Please add your portable planetarium information to the World Wide Planetarium Data Base Form. After filling out the form please send to: Daniel Audeon
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