NEED 

Underwritten by Measure C general obligation bond funding, a beautiful new science center is now being built at CSM, replacing four 40-year-old buildings, including a stand-alone planetarium. The current planetarium houses a star projector that was manufactured nearly half a century ago; it is able to project only limited images of the stars and parts for repairs are increasingly unavailable.

To be completed in Spring 2006, the new science facility with more than 37,000 assignable square feet will support labs, lecture halls, and faculty offices for the biological, physical, and earth sciences as well as an astronomy center.

The astronomy center consists of an observatory with a roof-top observing deck and 100-seat planetarium whose design emphasizes community access to convenient parking and a visible public entrance. The observatory will house fixed and movable telescopes while the planetarium will contain a 40’ dome onto which a new star projector, the GOTO CHRONOS, will project star images.

NEED

Bond-measure and college funding is insufficient to meet the $750,000 cost of the star projector and its associated projection and video equipment. CSM and the San Mateo County Community Colleges Foundation are conducting a fund-raising campaign, Reach for the Stars, to raise the $750,000 vital to the planetarium.

ABOUT THE NEW STAR PROJECTOR

GOTO CHRONOS star projector will provide rich educational opportunities for not only dedicated astronomers and CSM science students, but K-12 teachers, their students, and the community at large.

The star projector can project up to 8,500 stars far more than a dark, adapted eye can see, even in the desert. It can display the moon, planets, and sun as well as fainter objects such as galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. It can simultaneously project 24 different constellation outlines. Most of the 88 constellations, with the possible exception of five, look nothing like their namesakes, but the star projector allows constellation patterns to be traced on the dome. It also accurately simulates a sunrise and sunset and can display the sky in the distant past and then in only seconds change to the distant future, among the many features.