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Operating Your Planetarium with the Star Sphere
1. Place your planetarium on a table in the center of the room. A room with smooth, light
colored walls and ceiling works best. A room that is roughly square and no larger than 12 x
12 feet provides the best projection quality. Put the CD into a CD player.
2. Rotate your planetarium so that N (north) on compass lines up with the raised dot. This
allows your planetarium to project the stars in the same directional orientation as they are in
the real night sky outside.
Your planetarium projects stars that are visible from Earth's Northern Hemisphere, including
North and Central America, Hawaii, Europe, Russia, Asia, northern Africa, and the Middle East.
3. Date selector is located on the light wand. To set your planetarium for the beginning of the
audio tour, rotate light wand until "AUTUMN" lines up with pointer on the holder. At various
breaks during the audio tour, you will be asked to pause the CD and adjust your planetarium
for the next season. (The month and date settings and the time ring will be used after the
audio tour to set your planetarium for a specific date and time of day.)
4. Remove Meteor Maker from its stand and keep it close at hand, since you will use it during
the tour to point out objects and to create meteor showers.
5. Close window drapes or blinds. Turn on projection lamp. (Do not look directly at the Star
Sphere while its light is on, or you will lose your darkness adaptation.)
6. Start the audio tour CD, turn off the lights, sit back and enjoy the show.
Setting the Date and Time
Once you've taken the audio tour, you can set your planetarium to project the night sky for any
date and hour. You can easily adjust your planetarium for any date you wish: your birthday, a
holiday, the final day of school, last Thursday, or any other date. Here is how:
1. Setting the date: With projection lamp off, turn light wand until the month you want lines
up with the pointer. Below the month, there are markings indicating the 1st, 10th and 20th
of the month. Turn light wand to the left (so that Star Sphere turns to the west) until the date
you want lines up with the pointer. For example, if you want to project the night sky the way
it is on July 4, first select July, then turn further to the left, to just past the mark for the 1st
day of the month.
2. Setting the time: Once you have selected the month and date, rotate the time ring (without
turning the light wand) so that the time at which the
Sun sets lines up with the pointer. (The time of sunset
is can be found in the local newspaper or on the
Internet.) Now turn the light wand to the exact time
you want. (Don't worry that the months and dates are
changing on the date selector as you are adjusting
the time; once you've selected the date and set the
time ring for sunset, the time selection function takes
over.) You can set your planetarium to project the
stars for any time of the night. You can even see what
stars are up during the day, when they are not visible.
Time
Ring
Date
Selector
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Using the Starlight Dome
1
Remove Star Sphere as shown.
3
Place light wand back into base.
Meteors and Comets
Use the Meteor Maker to simulate a fascinating phenomenon of the night sky, a meteor shower.
Insert the meteor image slide in the slot at the front of the Meteor Maker. (Store the other one in
the slot at the rear.) Point the Meteor Maker at the ceiling or a wall, push the button, and wave it
to make the image streak across the room. Store the Meteor Maker in its holder when not in use.
A comet is basically a big rock, made of ice and dust, that orbits the Sun in a wide, elliptical path.
Most comets take many years to complete a full orbit. One of the most famous, Comet Halley,
visits the inner solar system once every 76 years. Comets are smaller than planets. Some are
relatively small in size and some are many miles across.
A meteoroid is a tiny particle, usually about the size of a grain of sand, that was left behind by a
comet. When it comes close to Earth and enters the atmosphere, it burns up brightly and is
called a meteor. Usually, meteors come in large bunches. During a meteor shower thousands of
meteors can be seen streaking across the sky for several nights. A meteorite is a meteor that fell
Pointer
to the ground without burning up. (See Annual Meteor Showers table on page 18.)
Push a paper
clip into this
hole to release
Star Sphere
2
Push a paper clip into the hole as shown.
To unlock the Star Sphere, rotate and
lift off the light wand.
4
Place Starlight Dome onto base and
turn on light wand.
9
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