New York’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Re-launches its Dome Theater with Addition of a Global Immersion Digital Planetarium.
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The Cradle of Aviation Museum, New York, USA, has added digital planetarium functionality to its ten-year old dome theater with the installation of a high performance Fidelity™ fulldome system from international planetarium provider, Global Immersion. The 330-seat planetarium, named the JetBlue Sky Theater, opened on World Astronomy Day, October 6th. The launch event was attended by one of America's original seven astronauts, M. Scott Carpenter.
Since 1980, the Museum in East Garden City, New York, has stood as an integral public attraction, serving the local community and beyond with what has grown to be a collection of more than seventy-five air and space craft.
Located on land renowned for many historic flights, the museum supports educational outreach programs and collaborates with regional schools to stimulate and support interest in Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math subjects (STEM).
The museum’s dome theater has housed the Leroy R. And Rose W. Grumman Giant Screen dome theater since its build in 2002. Now, the dome has been upgraded as a dual-purpose theater with the addition of a state-of-the-art digital planetarium system.
Named after its sponsors, the new JetBlue Sky Theater offers extensive functionality and a means to virtually transport visitors to any destination in the Cosmos.
Andrew Parton, Executive Director at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, commented; “The addition of digital planetarium functionality to our dome theater has been an important step in the museum’s development. Global Immersion has been a very supportive partner throughout the project and has provided us with a new way to support STEM education. Their expertise has helped us create an entirely new venue for learning and discovery, strengthening our ties with local schools.”
Operations Manager for the Americas at Global Immersion, Matt Fox, explained; “Working with the Cradle of Aviation Museum, we created a versatile and cost-effective solution that would deliver performance and stability in line with their educational goals. Most importantly, the new planetarium system houses a range of features which really position the dome as a multi-purpose theater and gives the team an interactive STEM teaching environment.”
The 75-feet/22.9-meter theater will use its new Fidelity Bright™ digital planetarium as a visualization environment for STEM subjects. The system, supplied with six channels of digital projection, a custom show package, Uniview real-time astronomy and data visualization platform, and a powerful planetarium server cluster, is designed to enable the import and presentation of a wide range of both pre-rendered and real-time media.
Fox continues; “Planetariums are extraordinary places that take audiences of all ages on a journey of learning discovery. Astronomy and space science continue to be popular taught themes in these theaters, and it is encouraging to be working with more and more clients like Cradle of Aviation who are enhancing their theater spaces with exciting new functionality and educating in areas beyond astronomy.”
About Global Immersion
Global Immersion is an international designer and supplier of high performance digital immersive theater. The award-winning team, with offices in the UK and USA, specializes in the innovation of world-class digital Giant Screen Cinema, 3D, 4D and planetarium environments. Renowned for delivering some of the world’s greatest digital theaters, the company develops and integrates leading-edge technologies exclusively for application, and has worked with some of the finest museums, science centers, digital theaters, theme parks and visitor attractions.
Born from a management buyout in 2007, Global Immersion’s extensive expertise includes planning, design, development, engineering, media & production, integration and through- life support for digital experiences that are built for the future.