On May 22, 2008 the Evansville Museum announcd plans for an
ambitious new facility expansion which will result in the construction of a new theater to replace
the current Koch Planetarium. According to Museum officials, the $15 million project “not only addresses
key existing infrastructure needs, but will also dynamically reconfigure our architectural profile in a way that
will bring the Museum well into the 21st Century and beyond.
The new Koch Planetarium will be unique to the area and one of only a handful of similar
facilities in the U.S. Scheduled for completetion late in 2010, the domed theater will be
located in a dramatic new construction at the southeast end of the museum. The domed theater will utilize a
German-made Zeiss star projector and five separate video projectors to display stunningly realisitc representations of
the stars and more.
Using advanced digital technology and the latest in creative content, the planetarium will be
capable of displaying over 7,000 stars and spectacular video imagery which will take
guests to places not yet imagined.
Each of the five video projectors in the dome will contribute to projecting a seamless 180-degree view of amazingly bright,
full color imagery. More than just a flat screen in a movie theater, the new Koch Planetarium will
be a domed digital theater, the “gold standard” for planetaria today. This “immersive” technology is a
revolutionary way to experience video in a planetarium setting.
Key to any planetarium is a persuasively real view of the stars of the night sky.
To accomplish this, we will retire our 34-year old Spitz 512 star projector and replace
it with a modern optical-mechanical star device. The Ziess ZKP-4 uses state-of-the-art fiber-optic
technology, to project the starry night realistically with pinpoint precision utilizing a
traditional center-of-the-room projector. Thousands of additional stars––stars not shown with
our current instrument––will blaze just like their natural counterparts do on a clear night.
The new planetarium projector will have advanced educational capabilities such as the precision
depiction of the sun; the moon; deep sky objects and the planets. The
planetarium projector and the digital projection system can be operated
independently, or work together to provide the best possible visitor experience.
In additional to serving as a venue for traditional planetarium shows and feature-length
productions, the theater will also host evening presentation, educational documenataries, movies,
lectures and teleconferences. Constrution on the new facility will get underway mid-2009. The current Koch Planetarium
will remain operational through 2009, until closing in 2010.
Institutional Member
EVANSVILLE MUSEUM
411 S.E. Riverside Drive
Evansville, Indiana 47713-1098
Phone: (812) 425-2406
Fax: (812) 421-7509
