Ruben H. Fleet Science Center - San Diego, CA
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Metro2
N 32° 43.865 W 117° 08.816
11S E 486232 N 3621484
The Ruben H. Fleet Science Center is located in San Diego's Balboa Park.
Waymark Code: WM9DNW
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 08/06/2010
Views: 9
The Fleet Science Center has many science exhibits aimed at kids....but, also an IMAX Theater which also serves as a Planetarium.
The Planetarium opened in 1973. This Wikipedia article (
visit link) explains how the Planetarium's unique qualities were planned:
"The planetarium would have several innovative features. First of all, the 76-foot diameter dome would be tilted 25 degrees. The audience would be placed in tiered rows facing outward into the tilted dome to give the feeling of being suspended in space. The founders also wanted to develop a large-format film projection system to show movies on the dome. The movies would use the innovative idea of filming through a fisheye lens. This would create a highly distorted image on the film but with a 180 degree panoramic view. When projected on the dome through another fisheye lens, the distortion would be reversed and the original panoramic view would be recreated. The audience would have a view that was like being at the original scene. Finally, they wanted to eliminate the large dumbbell-shaped star projector jutting from the center of the room and blocking part of the view. Such a star projector would also interfere with the movies being projected onto the dome.
The San Diego Hall of Science approached Spitz Laboratories to create a new star projector that would not obstruct the view for part of the audience or interfere with the movie projection system. Spitz created a servo-controlled "starball" that became the centerpiece of the system dubbed a "Space Transit Simulator". The spherical star projector and a number of independent planet projectors maintained a low profile while projecting a realistic sky for the astronomy presentations.
These elements, along with a number of slide projectors and lighting systems, were all controlled by a PDP-15 minicomputer. Unlike conventional planetariums, which are limited to showing the night sky as it appears from various points on the surface of the Earth at various dates, the STS could show the sky as it would appear from anywhere within about 100 astronomical units of Earth (about three times the radius of Pluto's orbit). A joystick even allowed the operator to "fly" the theater through space, showing the resulting apparent movement of planets through the sky, though in practice the planetarium presentations were always pre-programmed."