CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1498193
36 May 2023 north. e largest one is 10,000, and that's up in Edmonton, Canada," says Kabbes, who also is an astronomy instructor in the FSU department of chemistry and physics. "Ours is 9,200. e difference is the one (dome) in Edmonton is 70 feet across. We're only 30 feet across, so our pixels are crammed together so we have a higher pixel density than anybody literally in the world. "Nobody else is crazy enough to put this many 4K projectors in a little space, and that works really well here. It's pretty cool." New bells and whistles Kabbes is not the only one excited about the planetarium, which closed in 2017 and underwent a $1 million renovation that included updates to the Lyons Science Building. e planetarium had a brief "retro reopening" in November 2019 using the old star ball and a single projector for images, Kabbes says. ose shows continued until the campus closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. at's when the 4K projectors and sound system were installed. From April 2020 through December 2021, the university had virtual planetarium shows on Zoom. Kabbes also took his show on the road, making more than 200 presentations at Cumberland County library branches as part of the NASA@My Library program. "Lots of miles," Kabbes recalls. e planetarium, which is about 40 years old, reopened with all its new bells and whistles on May 15, 2022, for the lunar eclipse. e renovations were paid for with money from a state bond package issued in 2016, Kabbes says. Additional funding of about $40,000 came from COVID-19 relief funds. Two FSU staff members who visited the planetarium for the first time recently were awestruck. "It just blew my mind," says Larry Cummings, director of student orientation. "is is one of those features that all schools don't have. is gets students excited about learning." Quierra Luck, FSU media relations coordinator, agrees. "Our goal is to expand the minds of students in the community," says Luck. At a master control unit that would make "Star Trek" navigator Sulu proud, Kabbes pushes buttons that project different views of the universe, such as how the Earth would look from the dark side of Jupiter or a panoramic view of the constellations.