The sky’s the limit at CCBC’s planetarium

New facility on Catonsville campus devoted to lifelong science learning

The ancient Greeks and Romans saw the stars Zeta Orionis, Epsilon Orionis and Delta Orionis as the belt of the hunter Orion, in battle against a giant bull, explained the astronomy instructor at the new Benjamin Banneker Planetarium in Catonsville. Native Americans saw those same stars as a quiver of arrows across the back of a warrior believed to be the protector of his people.

As she led the presentation about the various views of the stars held by different cultures on a recent Saturday morning, Stephanie Caravello-Hibbert toggled between images of Native American warriors on the darkened overhead screen.

“These kinds of stories helped people to feel someone was protecting them from harm,” she said.

The presentation was part of “Ancient Legends,” an original multimedia show at the state-of-the-art planetarium on the Catonsville campus of the Community College of Baltimore County. It is part of an ongoing series at the Banneker Planetarium and is one of many examples of the facility’s efforts to make astronomy accessible, in part by exploring ways in which it interweaves with history, anthropology, the arts and other fields.

“We’re better than ever at taking what’s up there in the skies and bringing it down to earth,” Caravello-Hibbert said.

The planetarium, which was dedicated 18 months ago and recently opened to the public, is located in the Math and Sciences Hall on the South Rolling Road campus. It replaces the original Banneker Planetarium, which dates to the 1970s.

The facility is named for Benjamin Banneker, a free black man and self-taught scientist who lived in neighboring Oella and wrote a series of almanacs during the 1790s. Monthly Friday evening programs for adults are now offered in addition to the Saturday morning programs for children. The programs are designed to encourage lifelong science education, and they use Banneker’s unique legacy to promote broader interest in STEM education.

The new facility exemplifies a wave of change taking place across the country as planetariums forsake the optical-mechanical technology of a half-century ago and roar into the digital age. Like other high-quality planetariums in the area, including those at the Maryland Science Center, Towson University and the Robinson Nature Center in Columbia, Banneker has left behind “starball” projectors like the one at the original Banneker.

“Those basically consisted of a metal ball with lights inside and pinholes for each star,” said David Ludwikoski, the planetarium’s director and associate professor of astronomy at CCBC.

The new Banneker boasts a Spitz SciDome XD digital projector that can display 88 constellations on a seamless 30-foot dome. The old Banneker showed four. Designed by Spitz Inc., a Pennsylvaniabased planetarium maker, the projector allows operators to zoom in and out of scenes on remote planets and moons, show past and future starscapes, build and add sounds, alter the duration of shots, and cross-cut among locations and eras.

An additional attraction at CCBC is that the shows are free.

“We want as many people as possible to know about this public resource,” Ludwikoski said.