This should have been in What event(s) sparked your interest in astronomy, space and all? - According to my parents, when I was four I wanted to go to the London Planetarium, but they said you had to be five years old. So on my fifth birthday I told them I was old enough to go. (And we did)

But this is in The Independent today: Planetarium show is eclipsed by star culture
By Jonathan Brown
Published: 31 January 2006
I've long thought going to see waxworks a bit creepy (never mind the exorbitant price). It also reminds me of Carl Sagan as a child asking a librarian for a book about stars and being given one on films. But this is taking dumbing down to extremes.

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Carolyn

"All the screens are filled with heroes and losers, but the sky's still filled with stars"
...Midnight Oil - 'Golden Age'

So far Adler Planetarium in Chicago has not resorted to the Hollywood marketing format. There's something about the Midwest I'm proud of.

From this thread

Perhaps the other thread can now be locked as it is a duplicate, and I will continue on here

How the BBC have reported this

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Van Rijn's original Invisible Elf was running for the North Carolina Senate, but dropped out of the contest after the paparazzi snapped him with a cute pixie just outside Disney World in Florida. Now he has settled down with her as they await their first child, writing his biography of life in Van Rijn's backyard, - Now you prove me wrong

For those outside the UK, blissfully unaware, until now, there was a celebrity version of Big Brother recently and the winner was a fake cellebrity put in to fool the real celebrities. Now she is a celebrity for being a fake celebrity.

No wonder the London Planetarium is being axed.

What next?

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Van Rijn's original Invisible Elf was running for the North Carolina Senate, but dropped out of the contest after the paparazzi snapped him with a cute pixie just outside Disney World in Florida. Now he has settled down with her as they await their first child, writing his biography of life in Van Rijn's backyard, - Now you prove me wrong

Y'know, while I'm not necessarily a big "planetarium!" fan, I so hate it when celebrity wins over science and knowledge.

We're encouraging ignorance in the name of monetary and celebrity value.

"We" being mainstream society, not this fine group on this forum.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Encouraging? or just a result of the ignorance?

Unfortunately; from the first article, it is owned by an entertainment company to begin with. If it were in association with a museum or educational institution, then I would be worried. This seems more like business.

"Diane Moon of the London Planetarium" There's something poetic about that. Now what's it going to turn into... bare bottoms?

Here in Toronto, we lost our planetarium years ago due to funding cuts. They sold off their equipment and now can't afford to reopen! How emabarassing

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

I just keep hoping the Geospace Planetarium gets built. We do have the smaller "educational planetaria" at Seneca and the Science Centre. The last planetarium show I saw at McLaughlin, was in the fall of '86. Other than that it was either Laser Floyd, Stones, Zeppelin etc.

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" The universe is running away
I heard it on the news just the other day
There's this new stuff called dark energy
We can't measure and we can't see..." - from Jimmy Buffett's What if the hokey pokey is all it really is about?

There was a piece about it just now on Newsnight. Unfortunately Jeremy Paxman wasn't presenting this evening. But they did interview Diane Moon and Myleene Klass (winner of Pop Idol (or something like that)), now taking an astronomy degree.

As for the Science Museum - last time I went there I wasn't at all happy with what they've done with the stationary steam engines. They can't move those, but they've taken away most of the explanatory material. No context.

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Carolyn

"All the screens are filled with heroes and losers, but the sky's still filled with stars"
...Midnight Oil - 'Golden Age'