What is a planetarium?

Come Visit Us!

We are located on the campus of Oklahoma Baptist University in the town of Shawnee, about forty miles east of Oklahoma City on I-40 or 70 miles southwest of Tulsa.

Look at the map of OBU to find the W.P. Wood science building where the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics is located.

We are on the first floor just inside the front entrance!

Mailing address: 500 W. University, Box 61772, Shawnee, OK 74801
Information line: (405) 878-2090
Office phone: (405) 878-2028 | Fax: (405) 878-2050

Show Descriptions and Schedules

• Current show schedule and descriptions
• Friday night public shows:
  • Ticket information
  • Cowboy Astronomer,
  • The Mars Show,
  • Telescopic viewing available after each show, weather permitting.
• Shows by arrangement:
  • Arrange a show for your group.
  • Suggested programs for primary school groups.

Who are we?

We are a liberal arts university with a student-staffed planetarium.

• Our Cosmology and Cultures curriculum project,
  funded by a $50,000 grant from the American Council of Learned Societies as part of a program on "Innovation and Vitality in Contemporary Liberal Education," sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
  
  
• Our liberal arts vision
  
  
• Course Syllabi
  
  

Planetarium technical specifications

What's here and how it works. Start with the Goto star projector, then find out about the digital sound system, the automation system and the special effects.

• Our Goto GS-T star projector was the first installation of this model in the United States and was the 32nd worldwide. Purchase of the star projector was made possible by the W.P. Wood foundation.
• East Coast Control Systems is automating the Goto star projector during 1997-98 through a $25,000 Science Initiative grant from the Kresge foundation.
• A $10,000 grant from Eaton Corporation will provide new capabilities for projecting constellation figures, to be installed in 1998.

Astronomy and Planetarium Links

Seasonal sky calendars; Solar system links; NASA, Hubble Space Telescope, and JPL; electronic astronomy newslists; recommended astronomy education sites; and more!

Material Goodies

These supplies were not created by us, but here are a few recommended items at minimal cost to help you, your family or your students become familiar with the night sky.

Basic Celestial Phenomena (BCP)

Learning resources produced by the OBU Planetarium for university students, area teachers and educational groups are posted on pages distinguished by colorful horizontal bars and arrow points as shown here. These BCP pages include useful tutorials, practical lesson plans, and active-learning projects for your school, family, or group. They are designed to be especially helpful before and after visits to the Planetarium.

Basic Celestial Phenomena home page

• Web pages for each of the 88 constellations
  
• The Big Dipper.
  Begin finding your way around the sky. Anyone can start here.
  
• Phases of the Moon and Activity Lab
• Star Clock: Tell time by the Big Dipper
• Watch the Earth rotate: Foucault Pendulum Lab
• Suggested unit studies for primary school ages

©1997 All rights reserved

Welcome to the OBU Planetarium website. These pages have been written by Kerry Magruder; the Unified Studies Natural Science Coordinator Mike Keas; other OBU faculty; and the students who work in the planetarium. The website includes hundreds of educational pages dealing with various aspects of observational astronomy and planetarium operation.

These web pages may be printed, copied, and distributed for educational use by any non-profit educational group so long as they are not edited or altered in any way, nor distributed for profit, nor repackaged or incorporated into any other medium or product, and so long as full credit is given to the OBU Planetarium.

The Planetarium logo is not derived from a medieval woodcut!

Related Web Pages:

• The OBU Planetarium's Basic Celestial Phenomena Home Page
  • Constellations Index Page
• Cosmology and Cultures
• Unified Studies Natural Science
• Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
• Oklahoma Baptist University Home Page
  • OBU library, the Mabee Learning Center

Our web pages are never finished, but always under construction! The formatting of our web pages may be unintelligible if you are not using Netscape 2.0+. If you find a link that does not work, please tell us which link does not work--and which page you are on. Send us your URLs! Contact us by Email with general inquiries or suggestions. Thank you.