Difference Engine was contracted to edit the Museum Victoria magazine for two years. This involved project management, writing and editing tasks for the publication of two magazines each year for members of Museum Victoria. The Museum Magazine is a high quality publication that focuses on news and events for the three Museums that comprise Museum Victoria: Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks and the Immigration Museum.
The following article is one of many written for the magazine by Difference Engine consultant Michael Stapleton.
Dancing with the planets
The Melbourne Planetarium at Scienceworks has recently undergone a $1.5 million upgrade to install a state of the art digital projection system that allows visitors to see the dance of the planets as they move across the background stars.
The new system blankets the hemispherical dome of the Planetarium with a single, seamless, super high-resolution video image, resulting in spectacular colour and movement like never before. The upgrade project was supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria’s Asset Management Fund.
Using some of the most stunning images of outer space ever shown together with special awesome effects, the Planetarium show takes visitors to the stars and beyond. Set underneath a 16-metre dome ceiling, the theatre seats 140 people in comfortable reclining seats.
Visitors can now see the stars in amazing detail and true-to-life colour, they can experience beautiful images of the mythical figures of the constellations. They can even fly through the sky itself and visit a planet or star or two.
The Planetarium features a variety of shows daily, which have been developed by some of the country’s finest and most dynamic young astronomers, film-makers and science communicators. There are shows to suit visitors of all ages.
The upgraded Melbourne Planetarium has also introduced a fascinating new show called The Search for Life: Are We Alone? The Search for Life is a breathtaking production by the American Museum of Natural History in collaboration with NASA and is narrated by Harrison Ford.
The first digital Planetarium in the Southern Hemisphere, the Melbourne Planetarium has hosted more than 830,000 visitors since opening in August 1999. The Planetarium’s Melbourne predecessor, the H.V McKay Planetarium, closed with the decommissioning of the former Museum of Victoria at 328 Swanston Street in July 1997. It was in operation for 30 years, and introduced the wonders of the night sky to the people of Melbourne.
Unlike the H.V. Mckay Planetarium where the seats were arranged in a circle facing the projector in the centre of a dome, the seats in the Melbourne Planetarium all face in the same direction. The advantage of this type of seating is that images do not need to be repeated around the dome as they were previously, but have a central focus. All the seats recline to allow a larger and more comfortable view of the sky.
