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Show : Another Twilight Zone ,' Excitement' Planetarium's teaching key p., tYI VIA WINTERFELD F5''"1 1 I By SYLVIA WINTERFELD Chronicle Staff It tis now possible to go from Salt X Lae City to the Mt. Wilson o-. observatory to Mars in a matter 0f seconds, and all without ,j: leaving your seat. ' impossible? Incredible, maybe, 1 but it's absolutely true. Trips V I leave from the Hansen ,, planetarium daily at a relatively modest cost. The Hansen Planetarium began as lr. an j(jea at about the same time t (he Public Library was moving out " of its old facilities downtown in T , 1963. The future of the old building was J in doubt. One Sunday morning, ,: ' the Salt Lake Tribune published f : an article stating that various Salt j Lake concerns were interested in obtaining the real estate for building parking lots and high rises. ' Mrs. George T. Hansen, wife of a prominent Salt Lake citizen, hearing this, got in touch with fl Gail Plummer, president of the Library Board f Mrs. Hansen and Mr. Plummer l! discussed the possibility of I : converting the old building into a i planetarium. The cost was estimated by Mr. Plummer at about $400,000. However, he was skeptical about the willingness of ; the city to finance such a project. . He hung up the phone. Eleven minutes later, Mrs. Hansen called back saying she would like to donate a planetarium to the city. ; "The building has done , remarkably well as a . , planetarium," says Dr. Mark The library was created when the planetarium was formed with the stipulation that it be kept public. Mr. Mosely feels that the planetarium library can offer more help to the user than any other library. The books don't circulate, but anyone is welcome to go and sue them. "We'd like more people to use the library," says Mr. Mosely. ... The planetarium is one of the largest publishers of related materials in the country. Not only do they publish and print their own booklets, maps and postcards, post-cards, but they also publish and distribute for Hale Observatories, owners of the Palamar and Mt.' Wilson observatories. "We distribute over $1,000 a month worth of material all over the world, to other planetariums, schools and museums. We just don't begin to have enough room to store all the orders," says Dr. Littmann. The planetarium has 21 public showings a week and about six shows for school groups. The next scheduled show will be "They Walked by Starlight." It is concerned with man's concept of the universe and how it expanded as he built greater instruments and thought greater thoughts. The planetarium offers courses for University credit as well as for the general public, in such subjects as constellation identification iden-tification and using and building telescopes. If enough people are interested, they will conduct a class in almost anything. "We want to teach through ex- C citement," said Mr. Littmann. N Wald Cann was sent from Spitz laboratories in Pennsylvania to help repa.r the STP Space Transit Planetarium which they manufactured. Photo by Jennifer Stein when we project it, everything looks unwarped." The type of artwork varies from reality to utter fantasy. Mr. Bergera is presently painting a cosmic river in the sky, Eridenius. It is important that he intensify the colors because they wash out in projection. "We have to keep redrawing because the buildings in Salt Lake change," says Mr. Bergera. The panorama view of Salt Lake has had to be redone this year to include the L.D.S. Church office building and the University Club building. The large instrument in the center of the star chamber is the Space Transit Planetarium. It can simulate a journey through the universe. With it, you can go anywhere on earth, at anytime in history, past, present and future, or any moment in time (day or night). It can also take you anywhere in the solar system. The entire system of computers and machines can be run by one man. "You can really work up a sweat back there," says Dr. Littmann. Litt-mann. According to Dr. Littmann, the Hansen planetarium is considered large in size and versatility. Another feature of the planetarium that is not as well known is its research libary. "I think it's better than the University library in the field of astronomy," says John Mosely, director of the library. Littmann, director of the Hansen Planetarium. "Of course we could ; have built more elaborate facilities if we had had $2 or $3 ' million to build from scratch, but I've seen some of these across the ( country and they are not as good as ours." Dr. Littmann credits the success of the building to the architects. It was built as a community ; service at a considerable financial loss. "That kind of dedication is ; noteworthy," says Dr. Littmann. Dr. Littmann said, "I would like to ' ! see this planetarium serve the s entire population." Its purpose is : to serve not only people who are i committed to astronomy, but also e general public, by offering Programs and classes at a high . enough level to make them useful. The greatest number of people w"o visit the planetarium have , not been exposed to astronomy. We want to give people an idea ; 1 01 the excitement and beauty of i 1 astrorirny and how a scientist 80es about making discoveries" saVs Dr. Littman., ' The major feature of the Panetarium is the star chamber "ws, which are put together by : tne entire staff. Theartwork is the hallmark of the .... hows. Artist Cliff Bergera spends vsn a single panel. There is a Pecial problem with distortion " o ved, because of the curve in i edomeonto which the pictures re Proiected. The artwork must , "e proiectedatanangle, to avoid 5 h lh,p W Transit Planetarium, a , "8 instrument situated in the lenter of the room. "twJ krid distortion' the . 'S Phtographed at an , ,,,. simpist things are lb.iv,. ' Says L'Umann, "We J everything so that |