Dear Fellow Communicators,
In 2014 ESO produced a planetarium mini-show titled Journey to the Centre of the Milky Way. This fulldome show was accepted by the planetarium community with enthusiasm, encouraging us to produce more. Almost a year later we proudly release our first full-length 4k fulldome show: From Earth to the Universe, the world’s first free downloadable planetarium show. This stunning, 30-minute voyage through time and space conveys, through an arresting combination of sights and sounds, the Universe revealed to us by science.
Directed by the promising young Greek filmmaker Theofanis N. Matsopoulos, and featuring a sweeping soundtrack from Norwegian composer Johan B. Monell, viewers can revel in the splendour of the various worlds in the Solar System and the ferocity of the scorching Sun. From Earth to the Universe then leaves our home to take the audience out to the colourful birthplaces and burial grounds of stars, and still further out, beyond the Milky Way, to the unimaginable immensity of myriad galaxies. Along the way, the audience will learn about the history of astronomy, the invention of the telescope, and today’s giant telescope arrays that allow us continue to probe ever deeper into the Universe.
If you want to download the show for your planetarium simply go to the video page and download the 300 GB zip file containing the master 4k frames and select your choice of audio file. Note that we recommend using a download manager (read more here). Thanks to our partnership with CDN77 the large 4k planetarium files are also delivered via a Content Distribution Network from a server near you, giving a more reliable and stable download performance.
Two of our friends, the Νew Digital Planetarium of the Eugenides Foundation in Athens, Greece and the Hamburg Planetarium in Germany will be organising premiere events on 22 June. If you are in one of these areas and wish to participate let us know!
Talking about events, if you are in Munich on 27 June, we invite you to our annual Open House Day event. This year it coincides with the Long Night of Science. Regardless of your age, you will definitely find an interesting activity going on at our Headquarters, as well as throughout the Garching Science Campus. Less than ten days before, on 18 and 19 June we hope to see some of you at the workshop on Public Awareness of Research Infrastructures.
If you an early planner, we have an excellent opportunity for your students or children. The third ESO Astronomy Camp is open for applications. This year, participants will be exploring the topic of the Solar System and Extrasolar Planets, as well as making friends and having a great time doing winter sports activities in the beautiful region of the Aosta Valley, Italy. To quote one of the participants: "Most amazing people, most amazing campus, most amazing week! Can we all go back and do it again next year???" Here’s how you can use this opportunity:
- promote the camp to your students or children;
- sponsor a trip for one or more participants from your country/region/city;
- become a lecturer at the camp.
Let’s reach new heights in astronomy together!
Lars Lindberg Christensen (lars@eso.org)
Head, ESO education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD)
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9 June 2015: The world’s first full-length fulldome planetarium movie freely available for planetarium use, From Earth to the Universe, has been released in high-resolution 4k fulldome format, for the worldwide planetarium ...
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20 May 2015: On Saturday 27 June 2015, ESO will open its doors to the public between 18:00 and 24:00 CEST at its Headquarters in Garching bei München, near Munich, Germany ...
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