Innovation Special Planetariums 9 - Carl Zeiss Planetariums

New Stars
for Laupheim’s Milky Way
Sebastian Ruchti
Chairman, Public Observatory Laupheim e.V.
The Planetarium of Laupheim is run by
a registered society that also runs the
local public observatory. After 22 years
of successful operation and with a
total attendance of 800,000-plus in 60
self-produced shows, the planetarium
equipment will be completely modernized
in te summer of 2012.
The existing equipment with the ZEISS
M 1015 main projector had grown
organically in the course of the years.
Finally, apart from the star projector
there were around 50 slide projectors
and various video systems, among them
one with 3D capability for presenting
stereoscopic content, and a system able
to fill slightly more than half the planetarium
dome with video imagery.
The forthcoming modernization will
make the Laupheim star theater one of
Europe’s most advanced medium-dome
planetariums. It is intended that shows
will continue to be created and presented
by the members of the society.
Therefore, in selecting the components
of the new equipment, we were
intent on getting again a star projector
capable of delivering a realistic, brilliant
night sky, which in the foreseeable
future cannot be achieved with
the projection methods of digital video
technology. The star projector will be
supplemented, however, by a digital
fulldome projection system intended to
replace all existing video and slide projectors.
Its integration with the optomechanical
projector will result in many
new ways for the presenter to demonstrate
and explain complex relationships
and phenomena in the sky in a vivid
and comprehensible manner. The new
equipment will permit us to show, in an
all-live mode, things which would, with
the existing equipment, require several
weeks of production and testing.
The decisive factor in our opting for
a combined ZEISS projection system
consisting of SKYMASTER ZKP 4 and
powerdome®VELVET was that Carl
Zeiss is presently the only supplier in
the market offering an opto-mechanical
star projector as well as a fulldome projection
system whose projectors deliver
a perfectly black background. Especially
the attempts of the clever members
of the observatory society to work out
and install their projection systems of
their own, using conventional projectors,
have shown how important it is
for such systems to harmonize with a
star projector. We would not want that
the audience’s illusion of viewing a
realistic sky were spoiled at any time by
gray frames and backgrounds.
Innovation Special Planetariums 9, 2012
41