The Museum hosts nearly 1 million guests each year to its exhibits, films, planetarium shows, classes and special events.
THE NOBLE PLANETARIUM: A GIANT LEAP INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
The new 90-seat Noble Planetarium brings the first Zeiss-manufactured hybrid planetarium system – an immersive all-dome video combined with a fiber optic dual-hemisphere star projector to see more than 7,000 stars – to the Southwest United States. The planetarium also features an exhibit area that provides large screens with up-to-the-minute views of the Sun, as well as downlinks offering the latest information from the Hubble Telescope.
“Our new Noble Planetarium is a giant leap into the 21st century, incorporating the very latest cutting-edge technology in the planetarium field,” said Planetarium Director Linda Krouse. “Guests to our new facility need to bring only one thing – their imagination – and we will whisk them away as real-time explorers through the incredible wonders of our universe!” The planetarium will share space with the Cattle Raisers Museum and alternate its programs with the Cattle Raisers’ introductory presentation, “Thundering Herd.” Four 25-minuted programs, Texas Sky Tonight … LIVE!, Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity, Stars of the Pyramids and One World, One Planet: Big Bird's Adventure.
New Noble Planetarium Details:
Zeiss SKYMASTER ZKP-4 star projector which projects thousands more stars more clearly than ever before.Two (2) star balls that cover the entire sky – both the northern and southern hemispheres.Sciss UniVeiw flies Planetarium visitors to the edge of the universe and back. This live-action software allows real-time visits to any location in the known universe.
890-square foot, pre-show area features:
an official Sputnik satellite;
a replica of NASA’s original Manned Maneuvering Unit, which allowed astronauts the ability to fly without a tether to the Space Shuttle;
one (1) large plasma screen with ViewSpace, real-time information from the Hubble Space Telescope and other up-to-the-minute space news;
four (4) large plasma screens presenting real-time images from the Charlie Mary Noble Solar Observatory at the University of North Texas;
a beautifully-displayed 400-pound rare pallasite meteorite from the Brenham meteorite field in Kansas; and
an ever-changing exhibit case, initially containing the 100-pound “Blue Mound, Texas” meteorite.
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