The Sharpe Planetarium at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum has been upgraded with full-dome digital video, and it will re-open to the public on Saturday, January 30th.
The planetarium will show Firefall, which highlights the impacts of comets and asteroids on the Earth’s surface, on opening day.
The planetarium first opened in December 1954, after the Memphis Astronomical Society hosted a few public forums to gain support for the idea. They originally considered opening the planetarium at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), or Memphis State (now the University of Memphis). But they ended up settling on the Pink Palace, which is where the society’s members often gathered on the lawn for star-gazing.
The Pink Palace is working on a website to pay homage to the vintage planetarium, and they’re asking visitors to share (via email) memories and photos from its old days.
Pink Palace Planetarium Re-opens January 30th
