Armagh Planetarium has just reopened, offering visitors a better-than-ever intergalactic tour, writes Pól Ó Muirí
After being shut for two years and undergoing a £3 million (€4.4 million) refit, Armagh Planetarium has reopened its doors. The Planetarium "has been rewired, replugged, reheated, relighted, recomputered, rekeyed, rewindowed. You name it and it has been redone," says its director, Dr Tom Mason.
The old planetarium was an amalgamation of four different building phases, including this latest one, but with the new investment it is "truly 21st century" and fully accessible by wheelchair.
The original planetarium was a familiar stop for generations of children. The lobby used to boast a small replica of the Gemini spacecraft, into which children, this writer included, use to climb into and pretend they were in space. The replica had a few buttons that lit lights. By today's standards, it was very basic.
"Basic" is a word, however, that cannot be used to describe the planetarium's new - and Ireland's only - full-dome, digital theatre, seating 94 people. "It is unique," says Mason and it is no idle boast. Previously, the planetarium's projectors were electro-mechanical, with lenses, lights and motor. They were, says Mason, "very high maintenance. Very accurate and nice but limited in what they could do".
Armagh's former director, Terence Murtagh, pioneered video on theatre ceiling, a first for any planetarium in the world and Murtagh has had a hand in developing the new system, Digistar 3, from Evans and Sutherland.
Mason describes Digistar 3 as being akin to: "Imax on steroids. Our entire hemisphere is now filled with image. In the olden days we would have had angled projects and slides going clickety, click. Now it's all nice and quiet and run from digital projectors. Effectively, anything we can capture digitally - imagery, video, sound - we can get it up on the ceiling."
One key to the success of the new system is the use of Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) which produce a light quality far above what was previously available. The LEDs are mounted in strips around the base of the dome. These cove lights provide an intense uniform colour over the entire dome. Armagh was the first planetarium outside of the United States to install this new system and they are the envy of everyone, says Julie Thompson, Digital Theatre Manager.
She is in charge of producing the new star shows and in training staff how to use Digistar 3. For starters, she demonstrates just how effective the LEDs are by turning the dome red, then blue, then running colours around the walls with perfect resolution. (She is welcome to paint my kitchen any time.) For her, the state-of-the-art system is a "million pound X-Box".
Every inch of the digital theatre's dome is covered in images, providing full-colour 360-degree panoramas and three-dimensional imaging coupled with a surround sound system. Thompson advises me to sit down - just in case I might float off into space - clicks a few buttons on her computer and Mars springs into view. She zooms in and out of the Red Planet and the view is simply spectacular.
Thompson is also responsible for producing shows in-house, a tradition in the planetarium and one that she is happy to renew. They receive material from both the European Space Agency and NASA and want to incorporate as much as they can and to reach as many people as they can. "The personal touch is very important," she says.
The new programme includes a show for children under five, Sunshine, in which a friendly star talks to little people; a family show, Big, which looks at the universe; a live presenter show, Pole Position, which shows the stars that can be seen from your back garden and finally, Wonders of the Universe, which examines the creation of the universe and all that floats around in the cosmos.
The aim, says Mason, is: "firing the imagination. The thing we do here is passion and commitment and getting the kids geed up and wanting to come back for more. The beauty of digital theatre is that anything that can be imagined by an artist can be created. We can fly you to the moons of Jupiter."
• Armagh Planetarium reopened last Monday. Those wishing to visit are advised to contact the planetarium beforehand for tickets. Tel: 048-37523689 or see www.armaghplanet.com