The University of Washington Mobile

Planetarium
A Do-it-Yourself Guide
Phil Rosenfield, Justin Gaily, Oliver Fraser, John Wisniewski
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3
Motivation ...................................................................................................................... 3
Before You Begin ........................................................................................................... 4
Access Existing Knowledge Bases .................................................................................................................... 4
Timeline ................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Our Budget ........................................................................................................................................................... 4
Estimated Non-Equipment Costs .................................................................................................................... 4
Equipment ..................................................................................................................... 5
Essential Equipment ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Essential Accessories .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Non-Essential Equipment.................................................................................................................................. 9
Non-Essential Accessories ............................................................................................................................... 10
Non-Essential Equipment and Accessories for WWT ................................................................................ 10
Initial Assembly ........................................................................................................... 11
Optics Box Construction ................................................................................................................................. 11
Testing and Alignment...................................................................................................................................... 11
“Flipping” the Planetarium ......................................................................................... 11
Creating Tours ............................................................................................................. 12
Contact ......................................................................................................................... 12

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Introduction
The UW Mobile Planetarium Project is a student driven effort to bring astronomy to
high schools and the Seattle community. We designed and built an optics solution to project
WorldWide Telescope in an inflatable planetarium from a laptop and off-the-shelf HD
projector. In our first six months of operation, undergraduates at the UW gave planetarium
shows to over 1500 people and 150 high school students created and presented their own
astronomy projects in our dome, at their school. This document aims to share the technical
aspects behind the project in order for others to replicate or adapt our model to their needs.
This project was made possible thanks to a Hubble Space Telescope Education/Public
Outreach Grant.

Motivation
Digital planetariums are becoming a mainstay in astronomy education, as they allow
the presenter to enhance their lessons with both incredible imagery that has become
commonplace in the space age, as well as visualizations of astronomical systems from moons
to galaxies. Free software, especially WorldWideTelescope (WWT1) has brought high quality,
up-to-date astronomical imagery to the screens of anyone with an internet connection.
Furthermore, WWT contains its own image warping software, making do-it-yourself
planetariums with HD imagery within the reach of smaller budgets. In fact, the method we
describe below cost roughly $18,000 in parts (all purchased new). Our costs would have
been about $2,000 less had we already owned the laptop and projector. The largest cost is in
the planetarium dome and first surface mirror ($12,000).

The mobile planetarium project grew from an existing planetarium outreach

program. The graduate students in the University of Washington Astronomy department
maintain a weekly outreach program where they organize and present free planetarium
shows to any school or astronomy group that makes a reservation. In 2009, organizers
noticed that in the three years prior, this outreach program was serving on average 1,000
students a year. However, in the same period, no Seattle Public High Schools made
reservations, even though they are all located within 10 miles of the UW planetarium. We
decided that a proactive solution to our lack of SPHS engagement was to bring our
planetarium shows to the schools.

However, we quickly learned that with WWT software we no longer needed to

lecture, and instead could “flip” the planetarium. That is, students could create and present
their own planetarium shows. Our initial plan, to turn our planetarium outreach program
into a road show, became simplistic and outdated in the face of new technology. We now
engage students by helping them produce their own planetarium content, and bring our
mobile planetarium to help them stage their astronomically themed presentations.

We now describe the technical decisions we made and provide advice we wish we
had when starting this project from scratch.

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Before You Begin
Access Existing Knowledge Bases
We strongly suggest becoming a member of the yahoo groups “full_dome” and
“small_planetarium” and diving into their archives.

Timeline
We planned on nine months of part time work to gather equipment, design and build optics
housing, and test the optical alignment. We also allotted one quarter to offer a 1-credit
seminar to train undergrads in setting up and operating the planetarium. Finally, we set up
two meetings with a “pilot” classroom before launching into full operation.

Our Budget
We received an HST/EPO grant for $40,000 to increase access to the UW planetarium and
build a mobile planetarium. As stipulated, we were limited to spend no more than half of our
funding on mobile planetarium equipment. In total, our planetarium cost $14,000 in parts
which included purchasing a $1,500 laptop.

Estimated Non-Equipment Costs

Personnel
This project was never full time for any person involved. The initial overhead is the highest
concentration of labor, where the planetarium is built, and a team of undergraduates is
trained in WWT software and the technical details of the planetarium. For this initial ramp
up, we hired one graduate student and one undergraduate assistant.

The hired graduate student ordered and led the planetarium assembly as well as mentored
the undergraduate assistant. The undergraduate assisted by leading the building and design of
the optics housing as well as wrote lessons and trained prospective undergraduate presenters
in a 1-credit seminar.
Graduate Student: ~300 hours total, billed at 20% FTE for 9 months
Undergraduate: ~240 hours total, billed hourly for 1 year.
With the planetarium in full swing, we have a team of approximately ten undergraduate
volunteers who are capable of transporting the planetarium. Currently, one full time UW
lecturer is in charge of the mobile planetarium, though we recommend keeping this position
as an advisory role and funding 1-2 undergraduate assistants to manage the schedule and
communication with the schools.
Insurance
Insurance is an important element to remember to include in a longer-term budget.
Transportation
Although we have transported our entire planetarium and a passenger inside a four-door
sedan, typically we prefer to travel in groups of at least three people. In that case we rent a
minivan. Depending on the range over which you expect to travel consider budgeting for
rental vehicles and mileage costs.

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Equipment
Essential Equipment
Projection Type
We found that a fish-eye lens solution would be prohibitively expensive as a single purchase
and in the event we need to find a replacement projector. With the idea that undergraduates
would be transporting the equipment on their own and 30-35 high school students would be
filing into our planetarium, we wanted a projection system that would sit on an edge of the
dome, rather than the center. We opted to purchase two first-surface mirrors, one convex,
and one flat, to project imagery on the dome.

Inflatable dome, fan, and hemisphere mirror

The biggest equipment cost is the inflatable dome. The decision of which size dome and
which company to use should be made with care. We will not reproduce the clearinghouse
of knowledge and experience in the Yahoo groups, small_planetarium and full_dome. We made
heavy use of their email archive as well as asked specific questions to the group at large. We
list our main concerns and the solutions we came to with the help of the yahoo groups.
Advice from the experiences of members in the yahoo groups positively mentioned Go-
Dome, Digitalis, and Stargazer. In the end, we bought a standard sized Go-Dome through
eplanetarium.com2, which came with an inflating fan and the hemisphere mirror.

Dome size
Concern: Transportable by car (by 2-3 undergraduate students), ability to fit class of (~30)
high school students inside, and ability to fit within a classroom.

Solution: We limited our search for domes that were no more than 10’ high.

New issues raised by our solution:

The horizon will be low, most students will need to sit on the ground, some chairs or
perhaps two wheelchairs can be placed around the back and sides of a dome this size.

Why constrain to presentations in a classroom?

We could have purchased a taller dome and required that our set up would have to be in a
gym, cafeteria, or theater (outside is not an option as any wind will cause the dome to lose its
shape). We made our choice based on the following two issues:
1) We assumed there would be a no internet access outside of a classroom (in fact, we
rarely have internet access in the schools)
2) We assumed it would be more difficult for a science class to take over the other
locations and wanted our imprint on the school to be as small as possible (for
example, it could be too loud to share a space). In fact we’ve found that librarians are
often happy to share their space—but certainly it’s been very helpful to have the
option of using a classroom.

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We recommend calling around to different schools at this point to see what options are
available. In the end, we would have made the same decision on the dome size, and
purchased the standard Go-Dome.
Dome entrance
Concern: ADA compliant

Solution: We haven’t found an excellent solution for inflatable domes. The best option
seemed to be to purchase a standing dome (one that does not require constant inflation) that
has an open entrance. In our research, these domes were well beyond our equipment budget.
Advice from experiences of members in the yahoo groups positively mentioned Go-Dome,
Digitalis, and Stargazer as ADA compliant options.
Dome material:
Concern: Will the dome let in outside light? Is it safe to bring into schools? Has it been fire
tested?

Solution: All the above domes are light tight. The three companies listed above all seemed to
have dark domes and the necessary documentation.

The UW Mobile Planetarium dome in a high school science classroom (students are inside the dome)

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Mirror costs
Concern: First surface hemisphere mirrors are expensive, and seemed to be only produced in
Australia. How can we limit the cost as we are based in the US?

Solution: First surface mirrors are a must. Coated mirrors produce blurry images as some of
light from the projector is reflected by the interior surface of the coating back to the mirror,
and travels to the dome at a new angle. This is only made worse if more than one mirror is
used.

ePlanetarium ships a first surface hemisphere mirror for an additional cost with the Go-
Dome. (They also have their own TSA-approved optics solution, which was beyond our
budget, and may have limited our projector choice to a projector with a lens in its center.)
Dome Fan
Concern: Our only concern was the fan’s portability in light of the rest of the equipment.

Solution: It’s simple to purchase a small-wheeled attachment to the fan, or a luggage

accessory that is a foldable two-wheeler. We haven’t found the need to purchase them.

However, we quickly learned that fan speed, fan control, and fan noise are important factors.
After observing that the fan needed to be turned up to high while people enter and exit the
dome, we were concerned that we’d need a way to control the fan’s speed from inside.
However, we’ve realized that we actually always have someone on the outside to assist with
crowd control, and that they can use the fan’s speed to communicate to the presenter. We
typically turn up the fan when it’s time to wrap up the show.

In a small room, a large fan can create a lot of background noise. We suggest looking closely
into the specifics of the dome fan to make sure it fits your needs.
Projector
Concern: Small budget, good for high dark-light contrast (stars and nebulosity), easy
portability, small replacement costs.

Solution: We purchased an off-the-shelf, 1920x1080p (16x9) HD, high lumen projector.

Projector Central3 is a powerhouse of information when it comes to choosing projectors. We
limited our search to 1920x1080p (16x9) HD projectors under $1000. We find that high
lumen projectors are better suited for the mobile planetarium purposes. In large
planetariums we make use of the dark adaption so with a low lumen projector, the eye can
better pick out details like constellations after seeing a bright image. In our small
planetarium, however, the line of sight to the image is never more than 15ft, and usually
around 10ft. We cannot depend on the dark adaption of students’ eyes, for example, after
flashing an image of the Hubble Space Telescope’s mosaic of the Crab Nebula spread on the
entire dome. Finally, we pay no attention to the quoted contrast ratio, since dynamic irises
and other technologies make the quantity non-uniformly defined from projector to
projector.
We are aware of planetariums that have chosen to use LED projectors, which have the
advantage of not needing to replace bulbs, and would consider that in the future.

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Laptop
Concern: HD video card, large hard drive space,
Windows PC or Mac running Windows on a dual boot
or as parallels (for WWT).

Solution: Any laptop with a video card capable of

extending an HD display and dedicated hard drive
space for WWT to cache imagery is fine. Look for one
with a backlit keyboard so the presenter can type in the
dark (a USB powered reading light would be an
affordable work around to a backlit keyboard). From
our experience (and not industry comparison) we have
been happy with a near top of the line NVIDIA
GeForce video card. In simpler terms, the laptop
should have a built in (mini) DV or HDMI output.
For lower quality imagery, VGA can be used, but is
not recommended.
Optics assembly
Concern: Mainly durability, size, and cost. We wanted
to limit the handling of the first surface mirror(s).

Solution: To save money, we designed and built our

own. Full details of our solution are posted on our Justin Gailey tests his optics box in
website4 and available from the authors. the mobile planetarium. The DYI
guide to building the above optics box
Essential Accessories is available on our website4.
Cables and extension cords
Power
The laptop, the projector, lights, and perhaps other accessories such as speakers and PA
systems, require power. It is often against fire code to connect a power-strip to an extension
cord, so in our case it was important to purchase a single unit. Our originally 30 foot
outdoor extension cord with three outlets has been replaced with a power strip with eight
outlets and a 25 foot cord. We typically plug the fan in directly to a room outlet, alongside
with our extension cord.
Display
Not all HD projectors come with DVI or HMDI cables, and some laptops need a cable to
convert HDMI to mini DV. Using only the VGA cable that comes with an HD projector is
like buying a sports car and never taking it out of 2nd gear.

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Non-Essential Equipment
Secondary mirror
We recommend a secondary flat first surface mirror. It allows the projector to be safely
placed underneath the hemisphere mirror, and thus takes up less physical space in the
planetarium, meaning more places for humans, and a smaller chance of being bumped and
jostled. However, it adds more variables to the alignment.
Equipment cases
Dome
The inflatable Go-Dome from ePlanetarium came with two bags. It was shipped in one bag
that was rubberized and contained a canvas bag with a zipper. We found it was difficult to
replace the dome after inflation in either bag, as well as transport something so heavy
without wheels. Instead, we purchased a rolling equipment bag made for hockey goalies. At
the time of our purchasing, goalie bags prices ranged from $80-$120. Ours is large enough to
fit extra smaller equipment and not require expert dome repackaging. With some extra
budget, we would have had a logo option!
Mirrors
The hemisphere mirror is the most delicate and difficult to replace item, as there is no repair
for scratches. We built its housing as part of the box we would transport it in, to avoid the
number of times it would be handled (taking something in and out of a box for every show
seemed to ask for scratches)

The secondary mirror is less than 12” diameter and kept in a picture frame, which is covered
with cardboard and sealed with rubber bands, so that nothing touches the mirror surface.
We keep it in our laptop bag.
Laptop
A simple laptop backpack is enough to hold the laptop, lots of cables, a mouse, an Xbox
controller, non-essential accessories, and any paperwork (such as the fire retardancy
certificate and our contact information). A backpack is nice as it keeps a hand free to carry
other equipment.
Projector
Most off the shelf projectors come with a carrying bag. With the amount of travel— in and
out of cars and schools while carrying other equipment—we decided to purchase a heavy-
duty pelican case for the projector. We included the cost in the projector budget.
Lighting
It is always nicer to have people enter a planetarium with more lighting than the brightest
lights the planetarium will get. We use a simple solution of rope lights around the edge of the
dome, and bought a small switch so the presenter has easy access to turn the “house lights”
on and off. We also use a battery powered camping lantern to provide light during setup and
takedown.

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Non-Essential Accessories
Audio and Public Address (PA) Equipment
WWT can play prerecorded tours with audio, which requires some sort of amplified speaker
system. We’ve found that speakers placed outside the dome work great, as do higher quality
computer speakers placed near the presenter. We now use a wireless microphone worn by
the presenter, another wireless microphone that can be passed around, and a small PA
system to mix the microphone sounds and the laptop. This equipment is an investment of
about $1,000.
Tickets
We hand out tickets for particular show times when we are presenting at school science
nights, which typically have us doing many short shows in a row. The tickets ensure that
people know when to show up for their show, and they allow us to manage the number of
people at each show. We print 30 tickets at each show time on pull-apart business card
stock, which allows us to easily print more when we need them. With this system people
know when to return, we manage the crowds, and we collect the tickets to use again
afterward.
Laptop cooling pad
For longer shows, sitting with a hot laptop can get uncomfortable. We recommend a cooling
pad that is long enough to hold a mouse.
Seating
A carpet, a bunch of carpet squares, small benches, or folding seats that give back support
would probably be a welcomed accessory for those seated on the floor.

Non-Essential Equipment and Accessories for WWT

Internet access
WWT caches imagery from servers around the world. We purchased a 30ft long Ethernet
cable as a back up for internet access. Another possibility is using a wireless card in the
laptop. We found that neither the Ethernet cord nor a wireless card is essential. If weak or
no internet is available, this is a useful site5, as is the WWT documentation housed on their
site.
Mouse/Xbox controller
WWT can be operated with a USB Xbox controller as well as a mouse. Some of our
presenters are happy rolling a standard mouse around on top of the keyboard, although a 3D
mouse is a natural fit here.
MIDI Controller
WWT also has the ability to attach a MIDI controller and customize its key bindings. This is
an excellent solution to the keyboard/mouse control, but takes some work to set up (we
have yet to implement it).

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Initial Assembly
Optics Box Construction
Justin Gaily, who designed and lead the building of our Optics box, has written a separate
DYI guide, posted on our website and available from the authors.

Testing and Alignment

With the optics box ready, it was great to have high ceiling rooms to align and test our
system, as well as train undergraduates. The UW Dance and Theater departments graciously
provided these spaces. WWT makes warping very easy in several scenarios, including a 16x9
mirror dome (see WWT documentation for details). The rest of the setup involved adjusting
the components of the optics box: positions of the projector and angles of the mirrors until
the entire dome is filled with light. It is helpful to project a grid during this process.

“Flipping” the Planetarium

In our experience, one measure of a successful education/public outreach project is how
well it can be adapted to the specific needs of the target market. We wrote our grant with the
simple idea to bring our successful planetarium program directly to the Seattle schools and
community, but we have discovered that students can create their own tours of the universe
in our planetarium.

Our model is to support teachers during a “planetarium presentations unit” lasting one or
two weeks. The unit begins with small groups of students choosing a topic in astronomy and
creating a storyboard for a short (3-5 minute) presentation using imagery from WWT. If the
teacher isn’t trained in WWT, we make an initial visit to the classroom to demonstrate WWT
tour creation and check in with each student group. After this visit, students work together
to create WWT tours. Finally, our team returns with the mobile planetarium and the students
present their work to their peers.

Students create a story as they research their topic, and then practice their communications
skills to present it. On the presentation day, everyone gets to see their tour projected inside
the dome!

We have found that students have no problem creating tours that show well in the
planetarium (as long as they avoid projecting text). We advise them to consider that only the
middle third of their computer’s screen will be in front of them when they are inside the
dome and there is no reading from scripts inside the dome, so they can either record a
voiceover or memorize what they want to say.

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Creating Tours
General information on creating tours is available here.

We use the following script to quickly show a class some tour making ideas, as well as
demonstrating the capability of WWT:

1. Quick tour of WWT

a. solar system mode
b. turn constellations off
c. double click on a planet to go there
d. sky mode!
e. demonstrate search
2. Tour creation
a. Pull down Tour menu and create a new tour
b. create new slide
c. change view
d. set end position
e. create the next slide right away for a smooth transition
f. save!
3. Demonstrate the tour!
a. Play the tour while reciting lots of numerical information
b. Then play it while revealing interesting facts
c. Which is more interesting?
4. Tour creation notes
a. Avoid zooming in so close to your subject that it extends into the top or
sides of the screen, because in the mobile planetarium the top of the screen
projects onto the ceiling, and the sides project to either side of the audience,
and your subject will appear inside-out!
b. Text usually is hard to read in the mobile planetarium.

Contact
Email our team: [email protected]
Find us online: http://www.astro.washington.edu/groups/outreach/mplanetarium/
1
www.worldwidetelescope.com
2
www.eplanetarium.com
3
www.projectorcentral.com
4
http://www.astro.washington.edu/groups/outreach/mplanetarium/about.html
5
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astrojonathans_hack-a-
day_blog/archive/2013/04/15/running-worldwide-telescope-quot-off-the-grid-quot-
offline-cache-management.aspx

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