Morehead Planetarium
Encyclopedia
Morehead Planetarium and Science Center is located on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
. It is one of the oldest and largest planetariums in the United States having welcomed over 7 million visitors by its 60th anniversary in 2009. As a unit of the university, Morehead receives about one-third of its funding through state sources, one-third through ticket and gift sales, and one-third through gifts and grants.
First opened in 1949, the planetarium
was used to train Gemini and Apollo program astronaut
s in celestial navigation
. Until the late 1990s, it contained one of the largest working Copernican orreries
in the world. The facility was donated to the university by alumnus John Motley Morehead III
who invested over $3 million in the facility.
, the cost of its construction, more than $23,000,000 in today’s dollars, made it the most expensive building ever built in North Carolina at the time. Morehead Planetarium was officially dedicated during a ceremony held on May 10, 1949.
Since Zeiss, the German firm that produced planetarium projectors, had lost most of its factories during World War II, there were very few projectors available at the time. Morehead had to travel to Sweden, where he had previously served as American ambassador, to purchase a Zeiss Model II to serve as the heart of North Carolina’s new planetarium.
Let There Be Light was the planetarium's first show.
, Gemini
, Apollo, Skylab
, and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
programs spent hours in celestial navigation
training at the planetarium. Morehead technicians developed simplified replicas of flight modules and tools for use in the training, often from plywood or cardboard. A mockup simulating key parts of the Gemini capsule was constructed from plywood and mounted on a barber chair to enable changes in pitch and yaw.
Several of these items are on display at the planetarium. That training may have helped save astronauts' lives on occasion. Astronauts aboard Apollo 12
called upon that training after their Saturn V rocket was hit by lightning twice during ascent, knocking spacecraft systems offline and requiring them to configure navigation systems based on fixes taken manually. Gordon Cooper
used his training to make the most accurate landing of Project Mercury
after a power failure affected navigational systems. Astronauts enjoyed soft drinks, cookies and other snacks during their intense hours-long training session, leading planetarium employees to create the code name "cookie time" to refer to the training sessions. Occasionally word did leak out and noted clothing designer and Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian
recalls meeting Mercury Astronauts during a visit to the planetarium while in junior high.
The first astronaut to train at Morehead, in March 1964, was Neil A. Armstrong. Armstrong visited again only months before the 1969 launch of Apollo 11
, spending a total of 20 days at Morehead over 11 training sessions, more than any other astronaut. Astronauts commented that the "large dome" was "highly realistic" calling the facility "superb".
In all, the astronauts who trained at the planetarium were Buzz Aldrin
, Joseph P. Allen, William A. Anders, Neil A. Armstrong, Charles A. Bassett II, Alan L. Bean, Frank Borman
, Vance D. Brand
, John S. Bull, M. Scott Carpenter, Gerald P. Carr
, Eugene A. Cernan, Roger B. Chaffee
, Philip K. Chapman, Michael Collins
, Charles Conrad Jr., L. Gordon Cooper, R. Walter Cunningham, Charles M. Duke Jr., Donn F. Eisele
, Anthony W. England, Joe H. Engle, Ronald E. Evans, Theodore C. Freeman, Edward G. Givens Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Richard F. Gordon Jr., Virgil I. Grissom, Fred W. Haise Jr., Karl G. Henize, James B. Irwin, Joseph P. Kerwin
, William B. Lenoir
, Don L. Lind
, John A. Llewellyn, Jack R. Lousma
, James A. Lovell Jr., Thomas K. Mattingly Jr., Bruce McCandless II
, James A. McDivitt, F. Curtis Michel, Edgar D. Mitchell, Story Musgrave
, Brian T. O’Leary, Robert A. Parker
, William R. Pogue
, Stuart A. Roosa, Walter M. Schirra Jr., Russell L. Schweickart, David R. Scott, Elliot See, Alan B. Shepard Jr., Donald K. Slayton, Thomas P. Stafford, John L. Swigert Jr., William E. Thornton
, Paul J. Weitz
, Edward H. White, Clifton C. Williams Jr., Alfred M. Worden, and John W. Young.
In February 2010, Morehead introduced its new fulldome digital video (FDV) projection system, the largest FDV installation in the southeastern United States. The new system provides super-high-definition image resolution, 5.1 surround sound and a uniquely immersive planetarium experience. Funding for the new system was provided by GlaxoSmithKline, and the planetarium's star theater is now named the GlaxoSmithKline Fulldome Theater.
Morehead's historic star projector
, a Carl Zeiss Model VI, was installed in 1969 and remained in limited use as of April 2011, primarily for field trip groups. This projector displays about 8,900 different stars on the dome overhead. The analog planetarium shows are a combined effort of the Zeiss projector, slide projectors and video projectors working together to form a multimedia experience. Planetarium officials hope to display at least a portion of the projector somewhere in the center. The projector was removed in August.
The Ancient Carolinians opened on November 17, 2007. This exhibit explores the lives of the first people to live on the land now known as North Carolina, interpreting the use of 10,000-year-old artifacts from the Hardaway archaeological site. This exhibit is supported in part by the Alcoa Foundation, which donated the artifacts to the university. After January 1, 2009, the exhibit installation was removed so that The Ancient Carolinians could become Morehead's first traveling exhibit.
The PLANETS Portable Planetarium Program brings the fulldome planetarium experience to elementary schools that are too far from Morehead to plan a field trip to the center.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
. It is one of the oldest and largest planetariums in the United States having welcomed over 7 million visitors by its 60th anniversary in 2009. As a unit of the university, Morehead receives about one-third of its funding through state sources, one-third through ticket and gift sales, and one-third through gifts and grants.
First opened in 1949, the planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
was used to train Gemini and Apollo program astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
s in celestial navigation
Celestial navigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a position fixing technique that has evolved over several thousand years to help sailors cross oceans without having to rely on estimated calculations, or dead reckoning, to know their position...
. Until the late 1990s, it contained one of the largest working Copernican orreries
Orrery
An orrery is a mechanical device that illustrates the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System in a heliocentric model. Though the Greeks had working planetaria, the first orrery that was a planetarium of the modern era was produced in 1704, and one was presented...
in the world. The facility was donated to the university by alumnus John Motley Morehead III
John Motley Morehead III
John Motley Morehead III was a chemist whose work provided much of the foundation for the business of Union Carbide Corporation. He was a noted philanthropist who made major gifts to his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also served as mayor of Rye, New York and...
who invested over $3 million in the facility.
History
Morehead Planetarium opened on May 10, 1949 after seventeen months of construction. The first planetarium in the South, it was only the sixth to be built in the United States. Designed by the same architects who planned the Jefferson MemorialJefferson Memorial
The Thomas Jefferson Memorial is a presidential memorial in Washington, D.C. that is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, an American Founding Father and the third President of the United States....
, the cost of its construction, more than $23,000,000 in today’s dollars, made it the most expensive building ever built in North Carolina at the time. Morehead Planetarium was officially dedicated during a ceremony held on May 10, 1949.
Since Zeiss, the German firm that produced planetarium projectors, had lost most of its factories during World War II, there were very few projectors available at the time. Morehead had to travel to Sweden, where he had previously served as American ambassador, to purchase a Zeiss Model II to serve as the heart of North Carolina’s new planetarium.
Let There Be Light was the planetarium's first show.
NASA
From 1959 through 1975 every astronaut in the MercuryProject Mercury
In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...
, Gemini
Project Gemini
Project Gemini was the second human spaceflight program of NASA, the civilian space agency of the United States government. Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, with ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966....
, Apollo, Skylab
Skylab
Skylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a mass of...
, and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
-Backup crew:-Crew notes:Jack Swigert had originally been assigned as the command module pilot for the ASTP prime crew, but prior to the official announcement he was removed as punishment for his involvement in the Apollo 15 postage stamp scandal.-Soyuz crew:...
programs spent hours in celestial navigation
Celestial navigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a position fixing technique that has evolved over several thousand years to help sailors cross oceans without having to rely on estimated calculations, or dead reckoning, to know their position...
training at the planetarium. Morehead technicians developed simplified replicas of flight modules and tools for use in the training, often from plywood or cardboard. A mockup simulating key parts of the Gemini capsule was constructed from plywood and mounted on a barber chair to enable changes in pitch and yaw.
Several of these items are on display at the planetarium. That training may have helped save astronauts' lives on occasion. Astronauts aboard Apollo 12
Apollo 12
Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight in the American Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon . It was launched on November 14, 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, four months after Apollo 11. Mission commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L...
called upon that training after their Saturn V rocket was hit by lightning twice during ascent, knocking spacecraft systems offline and requiring them to configure navigation systems based on fixes taken manually. Gordon Cooper
Gordon Cooper
Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. , also known as Gordon Cooper, was an American aeronautical engineer, test pilot and NASA astronaut. Cooper was one of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space effort by the United States...
used his training to make the most accurate landing of Project Mercury
Project Mercury
In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...
after a power failure affected navigational systems. Astronauts enjoyed soft drinks, cookies and other snacks during their intense hours-long training session, leading planetarium employees to create the code name "cookie time" to refer to the training sessions. Occasionally word did leak out and noted clothing designer and Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian
Alexander Julian
Alexander Julian is an American clothing designer. He is most notable for his Colours clothing brand.-Early life:Born to Mary Brady and Maurice S. Julian, Julian was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a childhood playmate of James Taylor. His father, Maurice S. Julian , was a clothier who...
recalls meeting Mercury Astronauts during a visit to the planetarium while in junior high.
The first astronaut to train at Morehead, in March 1964, was Neil A. Armstrong. Armstrong visited again only months before the 1969 launch of Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
, spending a total of 20 days at Morehead over 11 training sessions, more than any other astronaut. Astronauts commented that the "large dome" was "highly realistic" calling the facility "superb".
In all, the astronauts who trained at the planetarium were Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...
, Joseph P. Allen, William A. Anders, Neil A. Armstrong, Charles A. Bassett II, Alan L. Bean, Frank Borman
Frank Borman
Frank Frederick Borman, II is a retired NASA astronaut and engineer, best remembered as the Commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, making him, along with fellow crew mates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, the first of only 24 humans to do so...
, Vance D. Brand
Vance D. Brand
Vance DeVoe Brand is an engineer and former test pilot and NASA astronaut. He served as command module pilot during the first U.S.-Soviet joint space flight in 1975, and as commander of three space shuttle missions....
, John S. Bull, M. Scott Carpenter, Gerald P. Carr
Gerald P. Carr
Gerald Paul Carr is an engineer, retired United States Marine Corps colonel and former NASA astronaut. He was commander of Skylab 4, the third and final manned visit to the Skylab Orbital Workshop, from November 16, 1973 to February 8, 1974.-Biography:Carr was born in Denver, Colorado on August...
, Eugene A. Cernan, Roger B. Chaffee
Roger B. Chaffee
Roger Bruce Chaffee was an American aeronautical engineer and a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program. Chaffee died along with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom and Ed White during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Kennedy...
, Philip K. Chapman, Michael Collins
Michael Collins (astronaut)
Michael Collins is a former American astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was Gemini 10, in which he and command pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins...
, Charles Conrad Jr., L. Gordon Cooper, R. Walter Cunningham, Charles M. Duke Jr., Donn F. Eisele
Donn F. Eisele
Donn Fulton Eisele was a United States Air Force test pilot and later a NASA astronaut. He occupied the command module pilot seat during the flight of Apollo 7 in 1968...
, Anthony W. England, Joe H. Engle, Ronald E. Evans, Theodore C. Freeman, Edward G. Givens Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Richard F. Gordon Jr., Virgil I. Grissom, Fred W. Haise Jr., Karl G. Henize, James B. Irwin, Joseph P. Kerwin
Joseph P. Kerwin
Joseph Peter Kerwin, M.D. is an American physician and former NASA astronaut. Kerwin was the first physician to be selected for astronaut training....
, William B. Lenoir
William B. Lenoir
William Benjamin "Bill" Lenoir was an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut.Lenoir was born on March 14, 1939, in Miami, Florida. He was divorced and remarried, and was survived by three grown children. His recreational interests included sailing, wood-working and outdoor activities...
, Don L. Lind
Don L. Lind
Don Leslie Lind is an American scientist and a former NASA astronaut.-Education:Lind attended Midvale Elementary School and graduated from Jordan High School. He received a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in physics from the University of Utah in 1953...
, John A. Llewellyn, Jack R. Lousma
Jack R. Lousma
Jack Robert Lousma is a former NASA astronaut and politician. He was a member of the second manned crew on the Skylab space station and also commanded the third space shuttle mission...
, James A. Lovell Jr., Thomas K. Mattingly Jr., Bruce McCandless II
Bruce McCandless II
Bruce McCandless II is a former naval aviator with the United States Navy and former NASA astronaut. During the first of his two Space Shuttle missions he made the first ever untethered free flight, using the Manned Maneuvering Unit.-Education:McCandless is the son of Bruce McCandless, a decorated...
, James A. McDivitt, F. Curtis Michel, Edgar D. Mitchell, Story Musgrave
Story Musgrave
Franklin Story Musgrave is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is currently a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California.-Personal life:...
, Brian T. O’Leary, Robert A. Parker
Robert A. Parker
Robert Allan Ridley Parker is the former director of the NASA Management Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a retired NASA astronaut...
, William R. Pogue
William R. Pogue
William Reid Pogue is a retired American astronaut who is also an accomplished teacher, public speaker, and author.-Biography:...
, Stuart A. Roosa, Walter M. Schirra Jr., Russell L. Schweickart, David R. Scott, Elliot See, Alan B. Shepard Jr., Donald K. Slayton, Thomas P. Stafford, John L. Swigert Jr., William E. Thornton
William E. Thornton
William Edgar Thornton is a former NASA Astronaut. Thornton was born in Faison, North Carolina, and is married with two sons to the former Elizabeth Jennifer Fowler of Hertfordshire, England.-Education:...
, Paul J. Weitz
Paul J. Weitz
Paul Joseph Weitz is an American former astronaut who flew in space twice.-Personal data:Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, on July 25, 1932. Married to the former Suzanne M. Berry of Harborcreek, Pennsylvania. Two children: Matthew and Cynthia. Hunting and fishing are among his hobbies. His mother, Mrs...
, Edward H. White, Clifton C. Williams Jr., Alfred M. Worden, and John W. Young.
Fulldome planetarium
Morehead's planetarium seats about 240 people, with a dome that is 68 feet (20.7 m) in diameter and 44 feet (13.4 m) tall. It currently boasts two different projection systems.In February 2010, Morehead introduced its new fulldome digital video (FDV) projection system, the largest FDV installation in the southeastern United States. The new system provides super-high-definition image resolution, 5.1 surround sound and a uniquely immersive planetarium experience. Funding for the new system was provided by GlaxoSmithKline, and the planetarium's star theater is now named the GlaxoSmithKline Fulldome Theater.
Morehead's historic star projector
Planetarium projector
A planetarium projector is a device used to project images of celestial objects onto the dome in a planetarium.The first modern planetarium projectors were designed and built by the Carl Zeiss Jena company in Germany between 1923 and 1925, and have since grown more complex. Smaller projectors...
, a Carl Zeiss Model VI, was installed in 1969 and remained in limited use as of April 2011, primarily for field trip groups. This projector displays about 8,900 different stars on the dome overhead. The analog planetarium shows are a combined effort of the Zeiss projector, slide projectors and video projectors working together to form a multimedia experience. Planetarium officials hope to display at least a portion of the projector somewhere in the center. The projector was removed in August.
Exhibits
On February 23, 2007, Morehead opened its first interactive exhibit, Zoom In: Science at the Extremes. It features current science at the extremes of size and scale, including research done by UNC scientists.The Ancient Carolinians opened on November 17, 2007. This exhibit explores the lives of the first people to live on the land now known as North Carolina, interpreting the use of 10,000-year-old artifacts from the Hardaway archaeological site. This exhibit is supported in part by the Alcoa Foundation, which donated the artifacts to the university. After January 1, 2009, the exhibit installation was removed so that The Ancient Carolinians could become Morehead's first traveling exhibit.
Science stage
Morehead Planetarium and Science Center offers live, educator-led programs in its Science Stage. Science LIVE! shows present the foundations of science through experiments and demonstrations that often involve volunteers from the audience. Science 360 programs are focused on bringing current science to audience members through images, video, demonstrations, and audience interaction.External programs
The DESTINY Traveling Science Learning Program, which was founded by UNC in 2000, became part of Morehead in 2006. DESTINY develops cutting-edge science curricula, provides professional development for science teachers (grades 6-12) and operates two mobile science labs that travel throughout North Carolina.The PLANETS Portable Planetarium Program brings the fulldome planetarium experience to elementary schools that are too far from Morehead to plan a field trip to the center.