The Ward Beecher Planetarium is part of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Youngstown State University. The 145-seat planetarium is both a classroom for YSU’s undergraduate astronomy courses and as a educational resource for the general public and school students throughout Northeast Ohio. The existence of the planetarium is due to the generosity of Youngstown industrialist and philanthropist Ward Beecher. In accordance with his wishes that the sciences benefit young people, the planetarium has always been free and open to the public. The WBP is continuously bringing new shows to over 15,000 visitors each year, including YSU students, the general public, and the many school groups.

The WBP has been a part of CosmoQuest (as Science on the HalfSphere; SotHS) since its beginning in 2012. SotHS is a project to provide fulldome content free to any planetarium with fulldome video capabilities, which is becoming the new standard in planetaria around the world. The initial projects of this initiative include the fulldome show Cosmic Castaways, a program about how to search for stars that lie between the galaxies. This show, funded through an NSF grant to YSU astronomer Dr. John Feldmeier, was produced at YSU, and co-written and narrated by CosmoQuest’s own Dr. Pamela Gay. Additionally, WBP Director Dr. Patrick Durrell has also taken a large number of fulldome (fisheye) images and video of the telescopes of the Mauna Kea Observatories.

With the new NASA-funded collaboration, WBP staff will be involved in taking SotHS to the next level, via the creation of many new fulldome videos and still images related to the myriad citizen science projects that CosmoQuest will develop and operate over the coming years. Planetarium staff will be developing full-dome video and 3D animation materials that will be distributed for free to planetaria across the globe. See more at Science on the Halfsphere.

Planetarium Team, from L to R:
Jill Mogg, Administrative Assistant
Curt Spivey, Planetarium Engineer
Dr. Patrick Durrell, Planetarium Director and YSU Astronomy faculty
Dr. John Feldmeier, YSU Astronomy faculty
Tiffany Wolbrecht, Planetarium Lecturer

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