ORLANDO, Fla. — Central Florida’s stargazers are getting an assist from Orlando Science Center. The museum soon will reopen its observatory on a limited basis.
The area, featuring a large refractor telescope with a 10-inch lens, has been off-limits to the public as a pandemic precaution since March 2020. The observatory is a distinctive feature atop the museum, a shiny silver dome seen from roads along the Loch Haven Park structure.
Access to the observatory will be gained through the science center’s private-experience program, which is steered toward small groups from the same party. The new tours are by reservation only and include talks by space enthusiasts plus time inside an inflatable planetarium.
“It’s invigorating, seeing things like Saturn through a telescope,” said Spencer Jones, public programming manager at the science center. “It’s really cool to see something through a scope with your actual eyeballs.”
The experiences up in the dome will be influenced by what can been seen in the ever-changing skies at that moment, he said. Visitors can ask questions or lean into a fully guided tour, he said.
“Whatever’s up in the sky will dictate what we’re seeing. It might mean more into showing what the telescopes can do if there’s only just the moon out at night or just Saturn,” Jones said.
“But we can look at Saturn through different filters to different magnifications. We can talk about why switching eyepieces does zoom in the image a little bit, and we can talk about the different specs of the telescope,” he said.
The extended layoff was not harmful to the telescope, Jones said. The dome and the gears had to be turned periodically, and there was occasional dusting, he said.
“Our observatory is a classic example of how Orlando Science Center connects you directly with science at work. The giant refractor telescope provides a great opportunity for sky-watching while our team of space enthusiasts makes sure that everyone gets an awesome view,” said Jeff Stanford, vice president of marketing.
“The intimacy of the experience really compliments this meditative setting, which encourages people to contemplate our place in the universe,” he said.
The science center introduced small-group programs for NatureWorks, an animal-oriented area, in February, and it has similar offerings for the Hive: A Makerspace.
The newest experience includes about 30 minutes in the observatory and 30 minutes in the pop-up planetarium, a 12-foot-high dome that brings the skies down to Earth. The latter is programmed to show what the night sky would look like in Orlando if not for all the light pollution, but then it shifts to show perspectives from elsewhere in the cosmos.
“It simulates what the universe looks like at any given time in any given orientation from the universe. Usually we start off here in Orlando because that’s where we live,” Jones said. “But if you want to fly to Mars, if you want to find a Jupiter, if you want to see what the orientation of the planet will look like in 1,000 years, what would it look like 2,000 years ago, you can do that.”
The observatory-planetarium experiences are offered at 8:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays beginning Nov. 12. They are scheduled to run through March 5. The price is $250 for up to five people ($200 is the rate for science center members). Additional guests are $25-$30 apiece.
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