life on mars - duquesne university · life on mars a screen shot captured from the buhl’s mars...

life on mars

A screen shot captured from

the Buhl’s Mars show displays

the entire image projected on

the planetarium dome.

48 pittsburgh quarterly | spring 2009

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irst the lights dim.

In the darkness, you feelthe intense drumbeat andtechno-pop rhythms of thesynthesizer pounding deepin your gut. Next a fiery,red globe materializes above

you like a cosmic disco ball of galacticproportions.

Look left and a futuristic spacecraftemerges from the solar system beyond.It begins to circle the shadowy planet,hurtling at warp speed through the thin,dusty atmosphere.

Moments later, the shuttle careens intothe surface, in a violent landing that wouldunnerve the most intrepid of astronauts.

Welcome to Mars.One by one, crew members exit the

cockpit, stepping down with uncertaintyonto the cold Martian terrain.

With the help of an iPhone-like naviga-tion device, they begin their search for fos-sil evidence that life might have formed inthe planet’s watery past. They explore polarice caps and volcanoes, dry river beds andancient craters, all painted in exquisitedetail across the vast, digital canvas over-head. And you are along for the ride, with-out ever leaving the comfort of your chairinside the new Buhl Digital Dome.

The high-definition projection system,

made by Sky-Skan, Inc. of Nashua, N.H.,was installed in the fall of 2006 at theCarnegie Science Center through a $1million grant from the Buhl Foundation.

This revolutionary “full-dome” systemis spawning a new breed of planetariumwhere entertainment technology andscience education find common ground.

It can take any digital picture orvideo—up to 16 million pixels a frame—andspread it across the Buhl’s 50-foot hemi-spheric dome, giving you a truly immersiveexperience as you explore faraway planetsor the hidden recesses of the human body.

Two projectors, each outfitted with afisheye lens, seamlessly blanket the domewith these ultra-high resolution images,extending them beyond your peripheralvision. This creates the jaw-dropping sensa-tion of moving through three-dimensionalspace and time, making you a part of thescene as it unfolds.

“The planetarium is really a virtual reali-ty chamber,” says Susan Reynolds Button,past president of the InternationalPlanetarium Society. “I don’t know ofanother venue where you can be completelyimmersed in the situation, place and time.”

But the new Buhl is more than asouped-up version of your favoriteCineplex. In the past decade, the planetari-

written by j e n n i f e r b a i l s

Gone are the days when planetariumsmerely showed twinkling lights inthe dark. Now full-dome systems

pair high-tech entertainment with education. Enter outer space.

F

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pittsburgh quarterly | spring 2009 49


um also has become a full-scale productionstudio, where artists, writers, computeranimators and scientists develop originalprograms seen each year by hundreds ofthousands of people worldwide. “If youtravel just about anywhere and pop into aplanetarium show, you’ve got a pretty goodchance that it might be one of ours,” saysJohn Radzilowicz,director of visitor expe-rience at the Carnegie Science Center.

Since 1991, the Buhl has distributedmore than 450 programs to universities,museums, other planetariums and sciencecenters in 21 countries on five continents.These shows have been translated into 18languages, attracting luminaries such asStar Trek’s Leonard Nimoy, science fictionauthor Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Mark Hamillof Luke Skywalker fame and Fred Rogers.

This spring, it will debut its latest pro-duction, “Two Small Pieces of Glass,”which celebrates the 400th anniversary ofthe Galilean telescope in conjunction witha new PBS documentary.

“The Buhl is a world-class planetariumwith a very big reputation of producinggreat things,” says Reynolds Button.

The added potential of the full-domesystem could further up the ante. “Weare already considered one of the majorplayers, and this gives us an opportunityto move even closer to the top of the packagain,” Radzilowicz says.

The creative force behind the Buhl’ssuccess has been James Hughes, who moreor less grew up inside the planetarium,back when it was called The BuhlPlanetarium and Institute of PopularScience and was located in the North Side.The Buhl Foundation opened the doors ofthe institute in October 1939, as a testa-ment to Federal Street merchant HenryBuhl Jr., who left $11 million in his will toestablish the charitable trust that bears hisname. It was the fifth major planetarium inthe U.S., featuring a 492-seat “Theater ofthe Stars” with a 65-foot steel dome.

You would be hard pressed to findanyone in Pittsburgh over 25 withoutmemories of the Zeiss Model II starprojector. The 6,000-pound electro-mechanical behemoth rose like anapparition from the floor of the old Buhlto conjure up the heavens, becoming the

stuff of childhood dreams—and probably afew nightmares.

Hughes, though, had a closer view thanmost other kids of this astronomical icon.His father, Roy Hughes, was a technicianat Buhl for 31 years, while his aunt, ShirleyHughes, has worked in the gift shop foralmost a half-century. The Shaler nativebegan his first job at the planetarium in1976 as a “star pilot,” operating theprojector during the decade’s popularlaser shows.

In doing so, he became too captivatedby the majesty of the cosmos to leave.

“It is hard to work in a planetarium andnot become enamored by the stars and thesky,” says Hughes, a part of the five-personproduction team at Buhl.

Traditional planetarium shows usedonly a Zeiss-like projector to display crisp,pinpoint images of the stars overhead,relying on a lecturer to guide audiencesthrough the night sky. In the 1970s,planetariums began to scatter a bevy ofslide, film and video projectors aroundtheir domes, along with mirrors, sound sys-tems and other special effects to enhancetheir programming.

At Buhl, Hughes was put in charge ofrunning this panoply of equipment. “Wealways said that Jim was like the conductorof an orchestra because he had like 100pieces of machinery he had to blend

together for a show,” Radzilowicz says. In 1982, the Buhl Planetarium became

the Buhl Science Center and began plansto move to a location along the Ohio Riverjust below where Heinz Field stands today.Five years later, it merged with CarnegieMuseums of Pittsburgh, and in October1991, The Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium &Observatory opened in the new CarnegieScience Center.

Upon moving, the planetariumreplaced the Zeiss machine with a digitalstar projector underwritten by the BuhlFoundation. For the first time, audiencescould not only see stars, but fly throughthem in three dimensions. The digitalsystem also projected dots and lines thatappeared on the dome as wireframe mod-els of comets, spacecraft and other objects.

Galvanized by this robust videotechnology, the Buhl decided to beginproducing its own shows—a dream cometrue for Hughes. “It was really a matterof loving a chance to tell these stories,”he says.

Drawing upon his insider’s knowledgeof the planetarium and lifelong interestin multimedia, Hughes set out to helpcreate the Buhl’s first original show,“Venus: Earth’s Fiery Twin.” The debutwas a success. Educators and schools lovedthe program, which quickly sold all 25copies made.

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The electro-mechanicalprojector loomed large inthe center of “The Theaterof the Stars,” using hollowspheres with a light insideand a pinhole to projecteach star. A lens in eachhole in the spheresfocused the light to asharp point on the 65-footdome. Lecturers wouldguide audiences on livetours of the night sky cre-ated with the historicZeiss Model II, consideredthe oldest operable majorplanetarium projector inthe world.

Zeiss Model II

installed 1 9 3 9

the buhl planetarium &

institute of popular science

north side

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Four years later, the Buhl produced itsfirst blockbuster, “Through the Eyes ofHubble,” chronicling a repair mission tothe space telescope. Narrated by StarTrek’s Gates McFadden, the show waslicensed by NASA and the Space TelescopeScience Institute and distributed to 150planetariums.

Other hits soon followed, such as “TheSearch For Life In The Universe,” starringNimoy, and “The New Cosmos,” withvoiceovers by Clarke. A perennial favoritewith the preschool set remains “The SkyAbove Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”Written and narrated by Fred Rogers in2001, the show explores celestial wondersin a computer-animated adaptation of hischildren’s television show.

Along with probing the outer limitsof the universe, the Buhl also began totransport audiences deep into thehuman body.

In 1995, the planetarium first aired“Journey Into The Living Cell,” producedwith researchers at Carnegie MellonUniversity and funded by the NationalScience Foundation. This spectacularglimpse into how cells work was followedby “Tissue Engineering For Life,” a five-part series highlighting breakthroughs inregenerative medicine.

Duquesne University biology professorJohn Pollock, who directed these programs

through a grant from the NationalInstitutes of Health, says the planetariumis an ideal venue for illustrating the beautyof the microscopic world and teachingthe hard science underlying this visualsplendor.

“As a scientist, I have an insight intohow things work and look in the body, andby collaborating with artists and animatorson these shows, I can put that knowledgevisually into the hands of the public,”says Pollock.

This rich, diverse programming quicklycaught the attention of the planetariumindustry and the public. The new Buhlbegan to draw more than 125,000 visitorseach year, making it one of the biggesttourist attractions in Pittsburgh. Hugheswas invited to share his expertise at plane-tariums in China, Australia, and acrossEurope and the United States. And sale ofBuhl shows started to provide a consistentrevenue stream for the nonprofit sciencecenter.

Then came the advent of the full-domerevolution in the late 1990s.

As its name suggests, full-dome digitaltechnology projects a computer graphicsdisplay onto the full surface of a dome.

Now planetariums can explore thecosmos as never before, zooming in oncolorful, textured stars, drawing the trailsof soaring comets and jumping to any

moment in the history of time. Audiencescan watch two galaxies collide over a billionyears or simulate the formation of theuniverse in just seconds. They can leaveEarth and observe the solar system fromany vantage point, or leave the galaxyentirely to view the large-scale structureof the Milky Way and beyond.

Video footage can be made inadvance—or pre-rendered—yet live startalks are still possible using a digital atlas ofthe universe to generate a map of the sky.

Gone are the days of scrambling in thedark to synchronize slide projectors, video,special effects and the star projector.Instead of slides, shows are recorded toMPG video files like DVDs. Simply fadethe house lights, hit “play” and the starscome out.

“This is an amazing new world forplanetariums,” says Reynolds Button.

Digital domes are quickly becomingtheir own industry, with more than 200theaters worldwide, 15 equipment vendorsand an equal number of show producersvying for market share, according to a 2006survey published by digital dome pioneerEd Lantz, who serves on the IPS full-domevideo committee.

At least 40 full-dome science programsare available, with five or six new titles ayear, Lantz estimates. The federal

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This system, made byEvans & Sutherland,introduced the world tothe digital planetarium,allowing audiences tofly through the universefilled with computer-generated stars in threedimensions. It was usedin combination with slideprojectors, mirrors andother special effects toproduce scripted plane-tarium shows. But theDigistar technology couldnot provide full-color, ren-dered effects—only dotsand lines that appearedon the new 50-foot domeas wireframe models.

This full-dome projection system, developed by SkySkan,Inc. uses two projectors, eachoutfitted with a fisheye lens,to project still images or videoclips onto the full surface ofa planetarium dome. Thisultra-high-definition technologyprovides a truly immersiveplanetarium experience, givingaudiences the sensation ofmoving through 3D space andtime. Shows featuring state-of-the-art computer animationand special effects can beproduced entirely in advance,but live star talks are stillpossible, using a digital atlasof the universe to generate amap of the sky.

DigitalSky 2

installed 2 0 0 6

buhl digital dome

carnegie science center

north shore

Digistar I

installed 1 9 9 6

henry buhl jr.

planetarium & observatory

carnegie science center

north shore

pittsburgh quarterly | spring 2009 51

the evolution of planetarium projection in pittsburgh


government gives millions of dollars eachyear to major science centers to createthese shows. There are courses onimmersive cinema, an active listserve, andWeb sites devoted to full-dome discus-sions, and even full-dome film festivalswith “Domie” awards for the best produc-tions.

To remain competitive, the Buhlrecognized it had to make the switch tofull-dome, Radzilowicz says. One milliondollars from the Buhl Foundation finallymade the upgrade possible. The foundationwanted to ensure the world-class planetari-um it founded 70 years ago would remain aleader in science education, says PresidentFrederick W. Thieman.

“Stimulating young people’s interest inscience and technology is key to developinga talented workforce in westernPennsylvania and to our mission,” Thiemansays. “It’s hard to find a place that does thejob better than the Digital Dome.”

The foundation grant purchased a full-dome system called Digital Sky 2 for the

Buhl—a system with enough computingpower to allow Hughes and his staff towork behind the scenes on new programswhile screening an existing show for thepublic.

Their premier full-dome production,“A Traveler’s Guide To Mars,” was adaptedfrom a book by planetary geologist andNew Kensington native William K.Hartmann, through a $400,000 gift fromthe Bozzone Family Foundation.

The show was produced in conjunctionwith Home Run Pictures, a Downtown-based animation and special-effects studiothat creates computer-generated imageryfor topflight clients such as the DiscoveryChannel, National Geographic and PBS. Italso is one of the few independent compa-nies in the world generating content forfull-dome theaters, says President andCreative Director Tom Casey.

Casey, a Beaver Falls native who studiedengineering and graphic design, openedHome Run Pictures in 1991, when his wiferefused to accompany him to Hollywood tohunt for a job. His first break came when

he landed a gig to animate six “Titanic”programs for the Discovery Channel.Building underwater scenes for these high-ly rated documentaries posed a uniquechallenge, but it was a cakewalk comparedwith working in the full-dome medium,Casey says.

Creating a full-dome show follows thesame basic process as making an animatedmovie such as “Toy Story” or “Ratatouille.”You write a script, develop the charactersand storyboard, produce the scenes andthen assemble and edit the show.

But watching a standard film is likegazing at a scene through a flat rectangularwindow. Part of what makes full-domeproduction so difficult is that viewers canlook overhead in every direction at ascreen that completely encircles them.“Pixar and Disney can ignore things thatare outside the frame,” Casey says. “In ourcase, nothing ever leaves the frame.”

Casey and his team devised a methodof gluing together five camera views of ascene to fill the circle of the full dome.These calculations take gigabytes of com-

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puter memory and often stump theirgraphics software designed for standardfilm production. A newer, less compli-cated approach places a fisheye lens onthe camera inside the computer to cap-ture the entire scene that will be pro-jected on the dome.

Casey also had to find a way to sus-pend the disbelief of planetarium audi-ences during computer-generated scenesthat can last for minutes, comparedwith just a few seconds in regularmovies. “That’s like a lifetime,” Caseysays. “So it's a little more difficult tostylize things to the point where itlooks believable.”

It can take anywhere from severalminutes to hours to produce a singlefull-dome frame, and there were 36,000frames in the 20-minute Mars show.

In the program, Home Run Picturesused real NASA elevation data andimagery to recreate the Martian terrain.Animated astronauts were brought tolife with motion-capture techniques,with the help of Cranberry-based visualeffects studio Cinemanix Productions.This technology uses 3-D facial andbody movements recorded from actorsto make the motion of animated charac-ters more realistic.

The result is a Mars encounter inthe immersive dome unlike anythingyou might experience with a telescopeor robotic probe. Instead of just seeingimages of the Red Planet, you feel as ifyou are stepping down onto its surface.

Casey recalls visiting the old Buhl asa child on school field trips. “The firstshow I saw was about Galileo, and Iremember looking at how the starsmoved and thinking that was thecoolest thing I had ever seen,” he says.

“But it isn’t just star shows any-more,” Casey adds. “I think once peoplestart going to the Buhl Digital Dome, itwill change their ideas about planetari-ums and hopefully get them excited.”

That is what the Buhl is banking on. Hughes and Radzilowicz began to

generate industry buzz by screening theMars show for 300 planetarium profes-sionals who convened at the Buhl for arecent meeting of the Great LakesPlanetarium Association.

continued on page 110

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“Now the phone is ringing again,”Radzilowicz says.

It can cost upwards of $30,000 tolicense a full-dome show, but thanks tolower overhead costs in Pittsburgh, theBuhl hopes to attract more customers byselling the rights to its shows for about$10,000 apiece.

Future full-dome programs couldexplore advances in fields as diverseas nanotechnology, medicine andarchitecture. Already, Pollock’s team hasproduced a full-dome show called “OurCells, Our Selves” about the humanimmune system.

In his shows, Hughes always tries toinspire visitors to the planetarium to reflectupon their relationship with the cosmos.“The fact that we can ponder the universeand learn about it makes it as much a partof us as we are a part of it,” he says. “I liketo say that you are as unique and complicat-ed as a galaxy.”

And whether that galaxy is generatedby the classic star projector he knew so wellas a child, or a state-of-the-art digital full-dome system, that sense of awe and wonderis one thing at Buhl that Hughes hopes willnever change. pq

Jennifer Bails is a writer specializing inscience, medicine and the environment.

Planetary Hollywoodcontinued from page 53

isn’t so much a problem as next year’s willbe, Dudas says. “Some are more panickedabout ’09–’10,” she says, referring to thecoming academic year. “Some who are call-ing have either been notified they will belaid off or have been told that, as of today,they no longer have a job.” The parents areworried that their financial aid forms will beprocessed based on their 2008 earnings andwon’t reflect their recent layoffs.

To a large degree, schools are banking onthe fact that, no matter how hard it is, manyparents will do whatever they can to ensuretheir children get a college education. Thatmeans depending on parents such as JudyWagner. Wagner and her husband, MikeLaRue, did a double-take last spring whenthey got the financial aid statement fromWesleyan University, their daughter Sarah’sfirst choice school. The “sticker price” fortuition, room and board at the small liberal-arts school in southern Connecticut, totalsaround $50,000. “When we saw the packagefrom Wesleyan, that was a moment when weboth went, ‘Uhhhhh,’ ” says Wagner. To sendtheir youngest to Wesleyan, they would haveto pay twice what they did to send her olderbrother to Harvard five years earlier.

“When you see that letter and whatthey think you have, versus what you thinkyou have, for a lot of parents, it’s prettytraumatic.”

Wagner, a senior director for communitygardens and green space at the WesternPennsylvania Conservancy, and LaRue, aprofessor of African History at ClarionUniversity, were lucky. Relatives had setaside gifts years ago toward each of theirthree children’s college educations. Plus,their incomes had increased in the past 10years. They figured the sacrifices they wouldhave to make—forgoing dinners in restau-rants, watching DVDs at home instead of atthe theater—pale in comparison to the feel-ing of giving their child the education shewants.

“Watching her come home from her firstsemester and seeing the growth she’s under-gone,” Wagner says, “I feel it’s worth it.” pq

Reid Frazier is a freelance writer living inWilkinsburg with his wife and two daughters.

Strategy in the ivory towercontinued from page 46


smooth my hair without being tooobvious. I wished I had some lipstick.It seemed wrong to care about what Ilooked like, and I didn’t want anyoneto see me fuss, but I didn’t want tolook like I was falling apart, either,even if I was.

“Excuse me,” a voice behind mesaid. It sounded scabbed over withwhiskey and cigarettes. “Can I just getin here?”

I moved over and made room forthe woman, who I think may have beena man. She was very tall, with largehands and thick fingernails gnaweddown to nubs.

“I just need a little sugar is all,hon,” she said. “It’s been a hell of anight.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “We all look like hell, don’t worry,”

she said. “Nothing a little coffee can’tfix, am I right?”

Her hair looked like a wig. It waspermed and sprayed and teased, and anodd shade of red that was cheerfulagainst her pink track suit. She lookedlike an oversized Valentine.

She poured sugar from the canister.She kept on pouring until her coffeelooked like syrup. Then she stoppedand held the canister mid-air.

Elevenscontinued from page 85


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