Science Museum Oklahoma

[scottk]

We went out of our way to see an interactive show this past Friday afternoon at the new planetarium at SMO.

Some background, I remember when SMO switched to the previous projector setup in 2018 in the old Kirkpatrick Planetarium, it was quite a leap from what they had previously, so given all of the hype about this upgrade, we had high expectations going in.

Unfortunately, what a disappointment.

The new planetarium is arranged in typical theatre seating from back to front and pitched at rising incline, unlike the previous one that was 360 degrees with every seat looking up at the center and all on the same level. So there are good seats, and bad seats. My advice, take a seat at the back of the auditorium, if you sit in the front, there will be things behind you on the dome that you can not see. The overall space actually seems smaller than the previous planetarium. As in less seats for each show. This may not be true, but it certainly felt that way. There is a single door entrance, and single door exit. The previous one had an interior breezeway on both double door entrances and exits so that if someone left the show midway, there was little light pollution to be reflected back into the dark auditorium; not the case in the new one. The entrance and exit awkwardly wrap around the existing dome, creating poor crowd egress and allow light to enter into the space. You enter and exit on the 2nd floor. The queuing area is placed before the steps into the new planetarium, keep this in mind if you have a stroller or mobility issues, I am not sure why line queuing isn't on the same level. In our case, the crowd wrapped back to the elevator and back side of Power Play as we waited to enter on the 2nd floor. With the new seating arrangement, the show presenters load the auditorium like open seating on Southwest airlines. Essentially moving people around and discouraging middle open seats to fill in the space.

There is now a star projector in the center of the new space, which under the old planetarium would have been fine as all eyes can equally look up at the center focal point, in this setup, it actually blocks parts of the screen as the axis of your eyes crosses the center placed projector to the screen. Additionally there was a part of the show using the center projector showing stars, but light is shot in all directions as both northern and southern hemisphere constellations are shown, but the audience is literally blinded by bright white spots as the southern hemisphere stars go below the dome screen and shoot in all directions at the audience.

The resolution and screen brightness compared to the old Kirkpatrick planetarium is comparable. From my perspective, the projectors didn't seem any brighter or sharper in resolution. This was probably the biggest disappointment as we were hoping it would be like the jump from HD TV to a 4K OLED TV. It literally looked exactly the same as it did previously.

As for the growing pains, I'll give them a break on the new space in regards to the show itself as they have only had a week in the new space. The show crashed two or three times during the presentation, and all of us set in the dark for about 90 seconds a few times as the computer restarted and watched the presenter's laser pointer dance across a blank screen.

As for the rest of the Science Museum, the old planetarium has been completely removed and now just open space with new carpet on the main floor. SMO has rearranged the existing floor exhibits to try to fill in this newly created empty space. If you enjoy liminal spaces, SMO is unfortunately filled with them.

As for the $8 million price tag on the planetarium, I can only guess the majority of costs was construction in retrofitting the old OmniDome. The actual technology didn't seem too different than what they previously had in the old planetarium.

[jn1780]

As for the $8 million price tag on the planetarium, I can only guess the majority of costs was construction in retrofitting the old OmniDome. The actual technology didn't seem too different than what they previously had in the old planetarium.

I was holding back on my criticism since I didn't actually see the interactive show, but in my opinion, it wasn't a very good investment (unless they do something with all the empty space they created). They would have been better off if they just built a bigger planetarium right in the middle of the exhibit hall for half the price. A lot of people, myself included, thought the OmniDome would have been a great fit for it. The reality was it was an expensive retrofit just to awkwardly make it fit the shape. The whole 1st floor is just wasted space, they had some folding tables and chairs setup. I was hoping that would have been astronomy exhibits. I understand now why there was a three-month 'transition period" and why they demolished the old one so fast. They didn't want people to compare the two structures and realize it wasn't much of an upgrade aside from the aesthetics of the building. The problem is the empty problem is even worse now.

[bombermwc]

Well that's all disappointing. When i saw the picture from inside, the first thing I said was, well they ruined the entire point of why the seating was made the way it was and turned it into a smaller seating space...bummer. Ripping out those seats effectively ruined the immersive experience ability and turned it into a tilted dome with no good reason for being that way.

It sounds like "world class" it is not. Other than the thing maybe not smelling like the 1960s anymore. 8M for that huh? Someone got ripped off.