The New Horizons Dome Theater and Planetarium, formerly the Tombaugh Theater, will open to the public on Friday, July 1. Featuring the world’s first Spitz Scidome 4k Laser fulldome planetarium projection system, the theater will premier one new giant screen film, two digital planetarium shows and a daily live star show.
The grand “re-opening” of the theater heralds not only a brand new projector system, but a new name for it and the building it resides in. The New Horizons Dome Theater and Planetarium is named after the NASA spacecraft that recently flew by Pluto. The building that houses the theater will be re-christened the Clyde W. Tombaugh Education Center to more fully reflect its role at the museum and to continue to honor Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto.
Opening weekend of the theater will feature the recently released giant screen movie Journey to Space, which takes moviegoers on a behind-the-scenes look at the multi-national effort to send humans to Mars. Grammy award winner Patrick Stewart, best known for his roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation and X-Men, narrates the movie which will show daily at 11:00 am, 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm.
Journey to Space will rotate throughout the day with two new digital planetarium shows. Legend of the Night Sky: Orion starts the day off at 10:15 am. The world's first traditionally animated fulldome movie, Legends takes an imaginative look at the stories and legends about Orion, the great hunter of the winter sky.
At noon and 4:00 pm, Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity shows, followed by a 15 minute live star talk. Narrated by Academy-Award nominated actor Liam Neeson, this cutting-edge production features high-resolution visualizations of cosmic phenomena, working with data generated by computer simulations, to bring the current science of black holes to the dome screen.
Museum educators will present a live star talk each day at 2:00 pm. Audiences will experience the solar system, stars, and the universe like never before get a guided tour of the night sky with museum educators. Learn why the planets sometimes seem to move backwards in the night sky and the stories behind the constellations.
“The words stunning and amazing cannot fully describe the spectacular images our audiences will be immersed in,” said Museum Executive Director Chris Orwoll. “This new theater experience will completely engage the audience’s imagination with the indescribable beauty and vibrancy of the universe.”
The New Mexico Museum of Space History, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, call 575-437-2840, visit www.nmspacemuseum.org or like us athttps://www.facebook.com/NMSpaceMuseum/.