After being closed for almost three months, the Harry C. Vaughan Planetarium is once again fully operational and back to regular programming.
The original closure of the facility was caused due to electrical damage and then further perpetuated by the August flood that damaged various buildings across campus.
“The operations team had something like 40 different facilities that were damaged including classrooms, offices, labs, and so it took a little time and coordination to get to a fully finished state,” Planetarium Coordinator, Max Gilbraith said.
“That said I’m very pleased with the professional and seamless finish they left us with, such that most folks won’t even notice something’s changed unless we point it out.”
Since the Planetarium has been shut down, the staff was limited to doing telescope tours and private events for safety and repair reasons.
“Now we’re coming back with a full public show schedule with constellation talks every other Tuesday at 8:00 PM, special live science presentations on Fridays at 8:00 PM, Saturday afternoon family science films at 2:00 PM, and Saturday evenings at 8:00 PM with live VJ music playlists,” Gilbraith said.
The first event back was on October 31 for the special Halloween presentation of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” which was part of the Liquid Sky music series. It was set to 4K-revolution visuals during a cosmic voyage.
