Technology Creates Immersive Nightscape Experience

A new hybrid planetarium system at Seoul Science Park, which opened in April, combines an opto-mechanical star projector and digital projection technology controlled by Zeiss Uniview software. The Zeiss Asterion Starball, the company’s latest version of a star projector is used as an analog component for a near-natural depiction of the starry night sky. Two Zeiss Velvet LED projectors complement the hybrid system with digital 360-degree fulldome projection.

The Starball has been for expanded for the Korean customer to include a lift for lowering the Starball from the centre of the 11m dome and is equipped with a scintillation device, which causes the stars to twinkle in response to a control command, similar as they do in nature by force of atmospheric influences. The Starball has replaced the 30-year-old Zeiss M1015 star projector at the site.

Deuk-Sil Jeong, Vice President of the facility, was pleased with the new installation: “With the new planetarium technology, visitors to the planetarium at Seoul Science Park can enjoy a ‘perfect’ night,” he said. “The Zeiss Uniview planetarium software offers accurate and vivid astronomical visualisations. It allows all phenomena of the universe to be displayed in a three-dimensional and immersive perspective beyond the earthbound view, all the way out to the remnants of the Big Bang.”

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