Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center's planetarium upgraded to high-def

High-def and science seems to be going together like macaroni and cheese lately. Well, with that underwater exploration story and then now that the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh has upgraded their planetarium to HD, it proves high definition isn't just all fun and games. The $1 million dollar DigitalSky by SkySkan projects up to five million pixels per frame by way of custom real-time presentations with the latest NASA images and databases. Images are shot up onto a 50-foot domed screen and is unlike your grade school planetarium memories thanks to magic of high definition. We are curious though if we slip the receptionist a twenty, or a new Sling Box, if they would let us throw a Monday Night Football kegger viewing party?

[Via The Pittsbugh Channel]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 29th 2006 6:11PM]

I used to work in the plantearium field for a couple of years and I was pretty familiar with the different "All-Dome" video systems. Unfortunately, my planetarium did not want to pony up the dough for it. I'm glad to see that Steve and the guys at SkySkan have made a real-time version that looks this good. I'd be curious to see how well that works. The real-time always looked pretty corny, whereas the pre-rendered was gorgeous. Granted, it's all due to computing power becoming a lot cheaper nowadays, but I remember when just 5 years ago, doing a projection of pre-rendered that covered the entire dome was taxing on the hardware.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 3rd 2006 2:50PM]

I'd love to see this thing!