New educational shows from the Great Lakes Planetarium Association

Cosmic Colors

Take a wondrous journey across the entire electromagnetic spectrum! Discover the many reasons for color — like why the sky is blue and why Mars is red. Take a tour within a plant leaf and journey inside the human eye. Investigate x-rays by voyaging to a monstrous black hole and then back at your doctor's office. Get ready for an amazing adventure under a rainbow of cosmic light! (32 min.)

The Stargazer

Come along on a journey to the stars with University of Illinois Astronomer James B. Kaler. Nichelle Nichols (from the original "Star Trek") and Dr. Kaler narrate this personal look at gravity, light, and the spectrum and how they help us decipher the lifestyles of the stars. (35 min.)

Now available in  Arabic:

Larry Cat In Space

and

Oceans In Space

Now available in  Russian:

HUBBLE Vision 2

Timelapse abounds...

Seven new fulldome shows added

May's new additions feature the creative works of Rocco Helmchen, producer of the popular Chaos and Order: A Mathematic Symphony. His visionary work crosses boundaries between art, music, math, physics, and geography.

First, for the geography maven in all of us, we present Switzerland Sojourns: five five-minute travelogues touring through Switzerland, highlighting the geographical and geological wonders of this land-locked country.

We're pleased to offer tempus.ruhr, Rocco's "night-shift" timelapse tour of the Ruhr region, one of Europe's largest metropolitan landscapes. This 25-minute-long trek through this industrial area of northern Germany links the past and present with scenery both utopian and transcendental.

Finally, we have a lovely bonus short, a gentle, five-minute-long ride through a set of softly lit and colored fluid dynamics visualizations called Liquid / Light / Flow, stylistically consistent with some scenes in "Chaos and Order". Who says learning can't be fun?

By customer request...

Two Small Pieces Of Glass: The Amazing Telescope

The 2009 International Year of Astronomy "History of the Telescope" project, now in the Bonus! Specials and Shorts section.

A FULLDOME OnDemand exclusive!

Underwater Fantasy

Beneath the waves of Earth's ocean lies a universe where humans are the aliens ' the realm of the coral reefs.

In this fantastic three-part journey, LivinGlobe filmmaker Harald Singer embarks on a gentle journey of discovery through one of the most beautiful and magical realms on our planet, and introduces audiences to the different realms of life that inhabit the coral reefs.

Underwater Fantasy is shot in HD, artistically enhanced to fill the hemisphere of the dome. There is no narration ' just soothing music that evokes an aural impression of life under the waves.

It features nearly 48 minutes of underwater footage. Each of the three segments is provided as a 17-minute stand-alone short. The segments are also blended together to provide an additional 48-minute full-length feature. All are included in the show package.

Here's last year's news, if you haven't been here for a while and want to catch up.

Mark C. Petersen, webmaster