For Seasonal STARGAZING we have set our latitude at 40 degrees north. Quite simply, that's pretty much where most of the world's planetarium-going population is (and hence our potential market). A lot of what we talk about in the shows is featured very prominently in the seasonal sky, and visible from latitudes well above and below 40°. We tried to avoid things too near the horizon; about the only concerns might be the positions of Scorpius and Sagittarius in summer and the Big Dipper in autumn. For most theaters, they'll be fine.

We chose the dates smack dab in the middle of each season — specifically, February, May, August and November 1st — a couple of hours after sunset. It's like bowling; you aim down the middle and hope you hit most of them!

You can, but our horizon is level, so the whole sky will be tilted the same angle as your dome. That's probably the way you do "what's up tonight" star talks anyway!

You get them all as part of the package; they're already all on the discs. You have maximum flexibility. Which ones you choose to play is up to you.

We are always happy to accept commissions for such things! Contact us and maybe we can work something out!

SHORT ANSWER: "Anything is possible, given the right amount of time, money and people."

LONGER ANSWER: Unlike our other fulldome shows, Seasonal STARGAZING has English text appearing onscreen throughout the shows, so it's not just a matter of translating the script and substituting new soundtracks with our existing video. Each label for every constellation, star name, and deep-sky object would also need to be recreated and substituted for the English text in our video compositing program, then new video re-rendered.

Also, the timing of all the onscreen animations (the words appearing, the circling of stars, etc.) needs to align precisely with the script. For example, one can't spell out the name of a star onscreen at the start of a sentence if the actual name isn't heard until the end of the sentence; they have to be seen and heard simultaneously. It's a virtual certainty that a translated text will not match precisely with the original animations that were timed for the English language soundtrack. So we would have to re-time, re-program, and re-render every version of every show.

This is all eminently do-able, but a major amount of work. See the SHORT ANSWER. Please contact us for details.

No. This style of production — with its precision timing and animation of lines and names — is just not practical to attempt in the classical slide-based planetarium medium.

Let's put it another way: speaking as producers who grew up giving classic planetarium green-arrow shows, it's only now with the development of the fulldome medium that we can finally give constellation talks the way we've always wanted to, but couldn't before, because of the limits of the technology. "Free at last, free at last...!"

We had to leave something for the sequel.

No.

The music in our Seasonal STARGAZING shows is all new music, recorded in 2006. You'll find it on the Geodesium album A Gentle Rain Of Starlight.

No. These are rendered, fulldome movies, with stars already in place.

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

No. You ask that about every show we have. What, 7 minutes is too long for your audiences?

These shows aren't like the slide-based show kits of yesteryear, which relied on pieces and parts provided by planetarians. These are rendered fulldome movies; either they play or they don't. So our generic city/country pans are already in place; they can't be changed by the end-user.

Besides, we want people to concentrate on the stars above, not what's below them. The pans are simply visual cues that help the viewer understand which season we're presenting.

Well, you can play the demo we have posted here on your PMP. But trying to display a whole sky full of stars on a 320x240 screen is, shall we say, a challenge! See the question above.

Actually, Seasonal STARGAZING is a direct descendent of our long-time planetarium favorite. They both start with basically the same encouraging words:

But don't take our word for it. Just check out the demo to hear the new version!

Roger Thompson, who narrated the original More Than Meets The Eye and HUBBLE Vision, is back in this new incarnation, so he'll sound familiar. And so will Wren Ross, who narrated HUBBLE Vision 2.

Rather than cover all four seasons as we did in More Than Meets The Eye, there's just one per show in Seasonal STARGAZING — and no telescope views this time around; just stars and constellations. But, otherwise, you get the same friendly tone as before, fine script writing by Carolyn Collins Petersen, great music by Geodesium, and topnotch artwork by Tim Kuzniar. It's all now brought up to date with modern animated graphics and fulldome video. Add to that the versatility of choosing either MINI or FULL shows, and you have More Than Meets the Eye done one better!

We agonized about this in the early production stages, and never did come up with a workable solution. Ultimately we decided to just mention them in passing at the start of the show. We say:

Then, to illustrate the points, we bring up the Moon for a few seconds to show its glow brightening the sky, along with a couple of planets in generic positions along the ecliptic.

To accurately demonstrate where the Moon and planets are tonight, we suggest that you use your planetarium's own software to set up your current night sky display, and give a little live presentation after our video.

Nigglers note: For spring and summer, when the ecliptic crosses low in the southern sky, in order to see planets and a waxing gibbous Moon a couple of hours after sunset, we had to skooch them off the ecliptic a few degrees so they wouldn't get cut off by the 270° truncated fisheye displays of some fulldome projection systems. Since our use is illustrative (they're only up for a few seconds), and the ecliptic is behind the audience (they're facing north at the time), we figure most people won't have a problem with this compromise forced on us by horizon cutoffs. If someone complains, you can complement them on their knowledge of celestial mechanics. Then ask them to point out Antlia.