Portable planetarium comes to Bethel Park
The sun, moon and stars sometimes come in compact form.
“When it deflates, we pack it up into three containers,” Don Antczak said. “And it will all fit in the back of a Ford Escape.”
He was referring to the inflatable Digital Starlab planetarium that Bethel Park’s Independence Middle School students are having the opportunity to enjoy during its stay through Nov. 13.
Antczak and Jack Greenberg from the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy were on hand the day the planetarium arrived to give presentations inside.
“We come to schools that invite us, set up the planetarium, and we basically do a sky show for them,” Antczak said. “We talk about different constellations in the night sky. We can do the planets in there. We can do a whole lot of things.”
His presentation, for example, included a talk about Britain’s Stonehenge and its use as a primitive but elaborate calendar. And as the inside of the planetarium went almost black, he addressed such popular overhead objects as the North Star, Orion’s belt and bright, binary Sirius.
The start of the presentation produces a visual effect best described by Independence seventh-grader Caley Richards: “When it moved, it felt like you were in an elevator, like when the elevator moves, because it changes from earth all the way up to space so you could see the stars.”
Classmate Ashley Hosbach gave much of the same perspective. “You feel like you’re blasting off in a rocket at some points, like you’re leaving earth,” she said. “It’s fun.”
It also is instructive, of course.
“The SSP and SACP, both professional groups, we try to promote science education,” said Greenberg, who ran the computer to produce projected images as Antczak spoke.
The nonprofit organizations are affiliated with Pittcon, which owns the planetarium.
“Part of the reason we visits schools, too, is not every school can afford the field trip,” Antczak explained. “So we’re bringing the field trip to them.”
The planetarium definitely is portable.
“When you bring it out, it doesn’t look like much,” Antczak said, until it’s inflated to stand about 14 feet high and 24 feet wide. “Then you kind of get the ‘wow’ factor that this thing is huge.”