Tom is a lecturer/narrator in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium's Centered in the Universe show at the newly renovated Griffith Observatory.
The world famous observatory reopened on November 3, 2006.
Tom's Centered in the Universe Performance Schedule
If you plan to go to the Observatory, feel free to contact us before you make your reservations. Send us an e-mail and let us know the dates you are considering. We'll make our best effort to get back to you with his performance times during those dates.
Click here to send an e-mail
About the Show
Courtesy of the Griffith Observatory Web site
|
We often imagine ourselves at the center of things. That includes our place in the universe, ever since the first people looked up at the sky. Even as our scientific observation has shown the cosmos does not revolve around us, our ongoing investigations continue to keep us Centered in the Universe. The premiere show in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium uses state-of-the-art all-dome technologies to weave a story that transports audiences from familiar constellations to cosmic destinations beyond everyday experience. Every show is presented by a live, engaging, knowledgeable storyteller, supported by a Zeiss Universarium Mark IX star projector and all-dome digital animation projected through two Digistar 3 digital laser projectors from Evans & Sutherland. Centered in the Universe creates a sense of awe and wonder as it reveals our ever-expanding universe and the changing stories we have told ourselves about our place within it.
The show opens with a glorious sunset projected by the Digistar 3 digital laser projection system and transforms into the most gorgeous, the most awe-inspiring, and the most accurate vault full of stars, all projected by the Zeiss Universarium Mark IX star projector. The live lecturer reminds us that people have always filled the sky with stories to explain the cycles of day and night, the circling of stars in the heavens, and the wandering of planets and to help them feel at home in the universe.
Then stories gave way to scientific theories. Ten minutes into the show, the Zeiss night sky fades to Alexandria, Egypt, circa 140 A.D. Using computer graphics in the immersive, 360-degree wrap-around environment of the Samuel Oschin Planetarium, the audience journeys from astronomer Claudius Ptolemy's Earth-centered universe to Galileo's Sun-centered solar system and on to Edwin Hubble at Mount Wilson Observatory, where he was forging our current view of the universe. Hubble realized the universe is not only incredibly vast but also expanding. Combining advanced technology, imagination, and the skills of astronomical animators, we are able to experience the Big Bang, travel through filaments of clusters of galaxies, and see the ultimate structure of the universe. Even as we scratch the surface of phenomena like dark energy and dark matter, we realize there is still more to be observed and discovered as we return home to the front lawn of Griffith Observatory. We have completed a voyage of evolving cosmic perspective. |
|
|
