BCC’s digital planetarium show returns this month

BELLEVUE, WASH. – Travel in time while you tour the stars as Bellevue Community College (BCC) repeats its highly popular digital planetarium show, “The Ever-Changing Sky,” in six showings: 6, 7 and 8 p.m. on Oct. 20 and again on Oct. 27.

Following the 30-minute main presentation a scary but fun, five-minute Halloween show will be presented.

Tickets, at $2 each, will be sold only in advance and only in person at the BCC Bookstore (located in the Student Services Building on BCC’s main campus, 3000 Landerholm Circle S.E., Bellevue, at the intersection of S.E. 28th St. and 148th Ave. S.E.).

The audience will fly through the Big Dipper to gain a new perspective on the stars and come face-to-face with the night-time sky as it was seen by early humans and as it will appear to our descendants 100 millennia in the future.

“Over thousands of years the constellations will warp out of shape – changing so much that they will no longer be recognizable as we know them,” said BCC Astronomy Instructor Art Goss, who created and narrates the show. “With our digital planetarium projector we can actually see this happen – something that old-style projectors can’t show.”

Because the planetarium must be totally dark during the show, no one will be admitted once the presentation begins.

The show is not recommended for children ages six and below.

“As the finale we fly the audience through a wormhole in space,” Goss said. “It’s pretty intense.”

The Halloween show, produced by the manufacturer of the digital planetarium projector to demonstrate its capabilities beyond astronomy, will be presented immediately after the main show for those who would like to experience it.

“It’s fun, but it includes scary sounds and images of the grim reaper and bats and spiders, so it may not be appropriate for everyone,” Goss said. “We will allow time for people to leave if they wish before we show it.”

Bellevue Community College’s Willard Geer Planetarium was the first to be built in the Puget Sound region and, thanks to donors to the Bellevue Community College Foundation, is now the only one in the state using an advanced, digital system to project and move images on the planetarium’s domed ceiling.

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

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

For more information about Geer Planetarium or the October shows, call the BCC Science Division at 425-564-2321.

The BCC Bookstore may be reached at (425) 564-2285.

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