New digital star projector
brings BCC planetarium to
world-class level of sophistication

Gifts to the Bellevue Community College Foundation have raised the sophistication of BCC’s Willard Geer Planetarium to a world-class level of sophistication.

“Our new star projector – called a Digistar 3 – can fly you through the Big Dipper and let you walk virtually on the surface of Mars,” said BCC Foundation Executive Director Gaynor Hills.

Digistar 3 is actually a high-resolution computer whose image appears on the planetarium’s domed ceiling in full color and three-dimensional perspective.

“With this upgrade to solid-form, full-color, 3-D perspective, the visual impact of our planetarium shows is exceptional,” said BCC astronomy instructor, Arthur Goss. “The entire visible universe and the known features of many space objects are plotted in the computer’s memory, so we can take you up close to and even land on planets, or travel millions of light-years away to see supernovas and colliding galaxies.”

BCC’s Willard Geer Planetarium was the first to be built in the Puget Sound region. Thanks to donors to the BCC Foundation, it is still the only public digital planetarium in the state -- and now one of only five planetariums of its size in the world -- with such advanced technology.

BCC’s planetarium was originally the brainchild of Willard Geer, BCC’s first physics instructor and one of the inventors of color television.

Today the 60-seat planetarium is in almost constant use as a classroom for more than 1,400 BCC astronomy students and 1,600 elementary and middle school students each year.