Kendall Planetarium, OMSI

Location

1945 SE Water Ave
Portland, OR 97214

About

OMSI’s Harry C. Kendall Planetarium, a 200-seat, 52-foot domed theater, is one of the most technologically advanced planetariums in the Pacific Northwest. The planetarium sports the new generation of Sky-Skan’s DigitalSky simulation and control system, DigitalSky Dark Matter. DigitalSky Dark Matter uses the JVC Reference Series offering an ultra-deep 160,000:1 native contrast ratio and 2,000 lumens per projector. A server of computers with the latest in NVidia graphics, 8GB RAM, 2TB memory, solid state drives, and 3.7GHZ Quad-Core processing per PC powers the Definiti system, including full-dome projection, sound system integration, and master control.

The laser show installation at OMSI uses six Rainbow FX laser projectors from the new Laser Fantasy Rainbow FX laser system. The laser system outputs about 15 watts of laser light compared to less than three watts from the previous system and uses a fraction of the electricity eliminating the need for three-phase power and water cooling.