Vigo County Education Foundation receives transformative gift from the Gibson Family Foundation to provide cutting edge technology at the newly renamed Gibson Allen Memorial Planetarium.

The Vigo County Education Foundation (VCEF) received a transformative gift from the Gibson Family Foundation for new technology at the Allen Memorial Planetarium.  This new, state-of-the-art technology will not only allow the Vigo County School Corporation (VCSC) to enrich STEM education for students, but it will benefit the entire community.
The VCEF exists to help the Vigo County School Corporation bridge the gaps in funding to provide enriching, experiential programs and projects for its students. The VCEF works to build partnerships between businesses and individuals and our schools. This is an excellent example of a family stepping up, in a most significant way, to provide exceptional, innovative educational programming. More succinctly, the planetarium would not be operational anymore, and our students would be deprived of this educational enrichment opportunity without their support.

The Board of Directors of the Vigo County Education Foundation made a formal proposal to the Board of Directors of the VCSC to request that the Allen Memorial Planetarium be renamed the "Gibson Allen Memorial Planetarium," due not only to the Gibson family's rescue of this incredible community resource, but in honor of the late Max Gibson, who was a strong proponent of the value of a quality public education for every child, and his belief that providing an enriching education is the key to success.
The VCEF also received a gift from Judy Brett and the late William Brett, and grants from the Wabash Valley Community Foundation and Duke Energy Foundation for the planetarium project.
The Allen Memorial Planetarium first opened its doors in1974, and with the grand opening came the unveiling of the star ball. This new-at-the-time technology was officially named the Spitz Laboratories, Inc. Model A4 Planetarium Instrument, but was conversationally known as “Stella.” Its abilities included showing the star field, the Milky Way, several Messier objects, 2 constellation outlines, the Sun, the Moon, several planets, and the motion of these celestial bodies both in daily rotation and in annual movement.

​As the years passed, Stella’s abilities diminished tremendously, with the last several years showing the most significant wear and tear. Several lenses fell out of the metal sphere, showing stars as large spots of light rather than the pinpoints they were meant to be. The Sun, Moon, and planets burned out and had proven difficult, even impossible, to repair. The positioning of stars, the ecliptic, and cardinal directions drifted slowly over time, and the two constellations were no longer functional. Parts of the night sky were dimmer than they should have been, and the entire system was becoming less and less effective at showing various astronomical phenomena. Finally, last year, Stella was no longer functional.

​Stella has been replaced by a much-updated piece of technology, Spitz Space Systems, Inc. Digistar 7 (with 2.5K Projection).This system is vastly different from the previous star ball in many ways. Instead of a large metal sphere with holes, lenses, and an interior light source, the Digistar 7 acts as a projector. Images not only of the stars, but all 88 IAU defined constellations are able to be displayed. Tours of other planets are available, as well as tours of various locations on Earth.

Katie Miller, Planetarium Director adds, “We are able to zoom in and out of space, view the star field from several perspectives, witness the birth and death of stars, and explore our galaxy and others. In addition to showing astronomical phenomena, the Digistar 7 also has the ability to display immersive renderings of cells or skeletons, depictions of concepts from physics and mathematics, interactive lessons on the fundamentals of art and color theory, an entire library of full-dome videos, and much more. The curriculum that this new technology will enable the VCSC to share with our own students and the community at-large is endless.”

The planetarium has been a beloved destination for VCSC field trips for fifty years. For many adults in our county, visiting the planetarium as a young person was one of the highlights of their elementary years. These same adults may look forward to seasonal star programs to be held quarterly in the Gibson Allen Memorial Planetarium, which will be free and open to the public. They will focus on amateur astronomy and how to find the stars and constellations during that given season.