Planetarium at South Grand Prairie High School

A few nights ago I had the pleasure of visiting the newly renovated John Carl Pogue Planetarium at SGPHS.

My father was the superintendent for Lincoln Builders that was hired for many of the schools recent upgrades. He was allowed to bring the family out for the opening and I got to meet former teacher, board member and planetarium namesake John Pogue, as well as present astronomy teacher Chris Miller. They have several state of the art telescopes for student and public use provided you keep track of when they are available for events at the planetarium. The planetarium it self has a high tech OMNI Computing system in which the program can actually show you the difference in the stars positions over time. This made me question just how good it was and I was suprised to find out, given some time the program could actually show you a 2600 year span from the entire age we are in to the age of Aquarius. Like I said, that would take some time to do, but for the program, showing several years into the past of future is no problem at all.

This planetarium has a special black hole exhibit for the public. There is an admissions fee, but the experience is totally worth it. When we were getting the presentation of the program they could even simulate a thunderstorm, eclipse, and sky color changes simultaneously. The astronomy club will also be traveling to more remote areas for better views with the high tech telescopes, so be watching the Grand Prairie ISD website for updates, and give them a visit.

I didn't get any pictures of my self in this location, but here is my friend spencer sitting in the back with me.