We just completed converting another planetarium program to DigitalSky. "The Endless Horizon" is about human exploration -- exploration of the oceans, continents, and outer space. The program is seen by 8th grade Social Studies classes here at Clifford Pierce Middle School each fall. There are three versions of "The Endless Horizon". The version seen by the Social Studies classes has two feature segments -- one on Christopher Columbus and the other on Lewis and Clark.

The program was orginally produced by Hansen Planetarium in Salt Lake City, Utah. When distributed to planetariums in the 1990s, the program included a soundtrack on a CD, boxes of slides, a VHS video tape, and a script and other printed materials. Using the soundtrack, slides, and video, we adapted "The Endless Horizon" for showing in our planetarium. In order to run the program in our new projection system -- DigitalSky -- we had to scan all of the slides and make a digital copy of the soundtrack and video sequences.

"The Endless Horizon" was challenging to convert to DigitalSky because of the large number of images and because the program was initial distributed in a modular format. When we produced the traditional (slide-based) program, we created three different versions, mixing different combinations of the modules. So, converting "Endless Horizon" was more like converting three programs instead of just one.

"The Endless Horizon" has now been converted to DigitalSky and is available for viewing by groups. We have more than 50 planetarium programs, most of which can be presented using DigitalSky. Only a handful of programs remain to be converted.

-- Gregg Williams, Planetarium Director
October 12, 2009