The Fred G. Dale Planetarium is gearing up to show night skies, lasers, and much more for the month of February 2025.
The planetarium will host shows on alternating Saturdays and Fridays. The shows started on Feb. 1 and continued until Feb. 28. According to the WSC planetarium website, the shows on Saturdays start at 1 p.m. while the Friday shows start at 7 p.m.
Each showing has two different events. The first event is called a “planetarium show.”
“That’s where people will get a tour of the current night sky and then watch what I call a full dome show. It’s a movie made for the dome ceiling in the planetarium and it’s usually about an astronomy topic,” Todd Young, a WSC professor of astronomy and physics, who also serves as the planetarium director, said.
The second event in each showing is a laser show where laser images and designs sync up with music being played. According to the WSC planetarium website, some of the musical artists in rotation for February are Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin.
The planetarium will also be hosting a special show for Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. “The planetarium show that night is called “The Sky We Don’t See”, which is a good tour of the Southern hemisphere. So, if you want to go ‘how about we travel to a distant land’ for your Valentine’s theme, you can do that,” Young said. That show will be followed by a special laser love songs show.
The ending weekend of February will be a sci-fi weekend. “I deep dive into my sci-fi geekiness,” Young said. “One of the shows is a reimaging of The Last Question by Issac Asimov, and then there is an in-depth program about the search for alien life in the universe.”
The planetarium is occasionally open for other events besides shows. “We’ve had small concerts and poetry readings in the planetarium, and I’ve had people bring their Xbox and PlayStation to hook up to a separate projector and have Madden contests,” Young said. You can reserve the planetarium by contacting Young at [email protected].
Young says that going to the planetarium is both educational and fun.
“Coming to the planetarium is like getting an education via a sucker punch. You’re just sitting back, and you’re enjoying yourself so much, and you’re so relaxed, and at the same time, without even thinking about it, you’re learning something!”