For 30 years the central city planetarium has been a visual gateway to the stars for nearly 2 million visitors - and the show is about to get a whole lot better.
The Iziko Planetarium is undergoing a major digital upgrade and when it re-opens in six months' time, visitors will be able to experience state-of-the-art digital full dome immersive theatre. It will allow audiences to virtually travel through the universe, and to the depths of the oceans. Speaking at the launch of the R27 million upgrade project, Professor Andrew Russ Taylor, joint UWC/UCT Square Kilometre Array (SKA) chairman, said digital transformation was changing the world.
Rooksana Omar, chief executive of Iziko Museums, said: “Museums are no longer static, authoritarian spaces but interactive, experiential places and spaces of wonder and learning.”
University of the Western CapeProfessor Romeel Dave, who spoke on behalf of the academic partners, including UWC, UCT and Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said given the current university funding situation, the investment required careful consideration and analysis at the highest institutionallevels. The benefits of participation in this work were abundantly clear, in the short and the long term.
Dave said the Iziko’s digital upgrade meant students from a wide range of fields, from astronomy to medicine and even fine arts would have access to cutting edge visualization infrastructure.
The Department of Science andTechnology’s Dr Daniel Adams said the facility would “strengthen the development of a skills pipeline across numerous key scarce skills”.
Planetarium manager Theo Ferreira said the old analogue machine was used for about 45 000 shows and the formal launch of the new system will be in January.