Movie Showings
Welcome to our Movie Showings! Below is an array of the many films we have to offer, whether you are looking to inform students about the depths of space, the beautiful constellations, the creation of the universe or a trip through the stars, the H-E-B Planetarium has a film just for you!.
Back to The Moon for Good
Rating: All Ages
Length: 24 min
Immerse yourself in a race to return to the Moon 40 years after the historic Apollo landings. See how a competition among privately funded international teams is ushering in a new era of lunar exploration. Learn about the Moon’s resources and discover what humanity’s future on the Moon might hold. Narrated by Tim Allen, Back To The Moon For Good presents the Google Lunar XPRIZE, and the personal stories of competition and collaboration it inspires.
Dinosaur Prophecy
Rating: Grades 2-8
Length: 21 min
Long before dinosaurs' massive extinction 65 million years ago, many individual species simply disappeared. Visit dinosaur graveyards, study their bones, and reconstruct how these creatures lived and died to solve four famous cold cases from the age of the dinosaurs in The Dinosaur Prophecy. Viewers discover the lives of multiple species of dinosaurs, from the Coelophysis of 205 million years ago to the Allosaurus and Diplodocus of the mid-Jurassic period. Viewers will also see the feathered Sinornithosaurus of China and the T. rex and Triceratops that survived and thrived until the final extinction of all dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Audience for all ages.
Flight Adventures
Rating: All Ages
Length: 20 min
Dreams of flying, model aircraft and a young girl and her grandfather come together in this multi-media planetarium show about the science of aeronautics. Learn about famous inventors and aviators of the past and the pioneers who first revealed the 4 forces of flight. See images of aircraft past, present and future and imagine where flight might take us.
Oasis in Space (Available in Spanish/Disponible en Español)
Rating: Grades 5-8
Length: 24 min
One of Spitz's most popular and widely distributed fulldome shows, Oasis In Space transports the audience on a startling and beautiful voyage through our universe, galaxy and solar system in search of liquid water - a key ingredient for life on Earth. With a proven, audience-tested story, a 95% viewer approval rating, and an original surround-format musical score, Oasis In Space will delight viewers of all ages. Spitz Inc. offers a teaching guide for use with this fulldome show which states that while most of the activities are correlated to the National Science Education Standards for grades 5-8, you'll find activities appropriate for elementary and senior grades as well.
Sizing up Space
Rating: Grades 1-6
Length: 13 min
Sizing Up Space explores the scale of the universe. The show was created by participants of the Blender Production Workshop at the 2009 Mediaglobe Users Group Conference. Most of the participants were modeling and animating with Blender for the very first time.
Sky Quest
Rating: All Ages
Length: 25 min
Sky Quest is an exploration of the stars, planets, and constellations told from the viewpoint of an astronomer. Share her lifelong fascination with the heavens — from her childhood adventures on Mars (via a cardboard rocket) — to the discovery of her 'birthday star' that led her to become an astronomer and build her own mountain-top observatory. Our astronomer shares her telescope views of solar system objects and talks about manned landings on the Moon, future missions to Mars, Hubble Space Telescope studies of Jupiter, and the glorious rings of Saturn. Along the way she points out her favorite stars, and explains how she learned to find the constellations with simple star-hopping techniques. She encourages everyone to make the time to look up, even if it means stargazing in urban areas with light pollution.
Two Small Pieces of Glass
Rating: Grades 9-12
Length: 23 min
While attending a local star party, two teenage students learn how the telescope has helped us understand our place in space and how telescopes continue to expand our understanding of the Universe. Their conversation with a local female astronomer enlightens them on the history of the telescope and the discoveries these wonderful tools have made. The students see how telescopes work and how the largest observatories in the world use these instruments to explore the mysteries of the universe. While looking through the astronomer's telescope, the students, along with the planetarium audience, explore the Galilean Moons, Saturn's rings, and spiral structure of galaxies. During their conversation with the astronomer, they also learn about the discoveries of Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Hubble and many others.
Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity (Available in Spanish/Disponible en Español)
Rating: All Ages
Length: 24 min
Black Holes: the Other Side of Infinity is one of the most successful fulldome shows ever produced. Narrated by Academy-Award nominated actor Liam Neeson, this cutting-edge production features high-resolution visualizations of cosmic phenomena, working with data generated by computer simulations, to bring the current science of black holes to the dome screen. Audiences will be dazzled with striking, immersive animations of the formation of the early universe, star birth and death, the collision of giant galaxies, and a simulated flight to a super-massive black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Cosmic Castaways
Rating: All Ages
Length: 20 min
There are places where the night sky has no constellations. No Orion, no Big Dipper, nothing but a few lonely, far away stars and a few faint, ghostly patches of light. Most stars lie within the crowded boundaries of galaxies, travelling with their brothers and sisters in a vast galactic family. But some find themselves on their own, deep within voids between the galaxies. These are the cosmic castaways. This show is an original production of the Ward Beecher Planetarium and is based on the research of YSU’s resident astrophysicists Dr. John Feldmeier and Dr. Patrick Durrell.
Dark the Movie
Rating: All Ages
Length: 20 min
Dark is a full dome movie that explains and explores the nature of dark matter, the missing 80% of the mass of the Universe. The search for dark matter is the most pressing astrophysical problem of our time – the solution to which will help us understand why the Universe is as it is, where it came from, and how it has evolved over billions of years – the unimaginable depths of deep time, of which a human life is but a flickering instant. But in that instant, we can grasp its immensity and, through science, we can attempt to understand it.
HUBBLE Vision 2
Rating: All Ages
Length: 20 min
HUBBLE Vision 2 is a fascinating tour of the cosmos from Earth orbit. Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided incredible images in unprecedented detail to astronomers, and made an astonishing array of discoveries — from nearby objects in the solar system to the most distant galaxies at limits of the observable universe. We've taken the best and most exciting Hubble images and woven them into an engaging story of cosmic exploration, bringing the wonders of the universe to audiences everywhere. In this all-new production, major themes in current astronomy and cosmology are presented: new views of the planets; peeks into star birth nurseries; visions of star death in its many forms; explorations of star clusters and galaxies; and views of the universe when the earliest galaxies first shone. We catch glimpses of solar system objects, including the Moon and Venus; clouds on dusty Mars; Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's crash into Jupiter; storms on Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; and the faraway worlds of Pluto and Quaoar. Beyond the solar system, we explore protoplanetary disks in the Orion Nebula, and regions of star birth across the cosmos. We see breathtaking views of colliding galaxies; jets shooting from active galactic nuclei, powered by super massive black holes; the eerie effects of gravitational lenses; and deep-field views of the most distant galaxies ever seen. Bring the Space Telescope's exciting discoveries to audiences of all ages.
IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar System
Rating: All Ages
Length: 28 min
This movie is 28 minutes long and focuses on the spacecraft that explore the boundaries of our solar system. Designed for visitors with an appreciation for the challenges of space science and a desire to learn more about science research, IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar System follows the creation of NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX). Audiences will get an in-depth look at the mission and how IBEX is collecting high-speed atoms to create a map of our Solar System's boundary. Narrated by two inquisitive teenagers, audiences will hear from the scientists and engineers that developed the IBEX mission and created the spacecraft, and get the latest updates on the mission's discoveries.
When Venus Transits the Sun
Rating: All Ages
Length: 27 min
This colorful, 27 minute program looks at what a transit is, highlights the 1769 transit with the adventurous expedition by Captain Cook, explores the main characters of the event (Venus and the sun), what to expect for the 2012 transit, how to view the transit safely, and more. Written with a great mix of educational fun and adventure, this program will be perfect for school groups and the public.
Life Cycle of The Stars
Rating: All Ages
Length: 26 mins
The Life Cyle of the Stars full dome film discusses the evolution of a star journey from its start to end.
Sunstruck
Rating: All Ages
Length: 21 mins
Discover the wonders of our sun. It's incredible energy has supported life on earth for millennia, but is now threatening our technology and way of life. Travel to the distant future to discover our sun’s connection to the universe’s cosmic cycle of life and death.
The Moon
Rating: All Ages
Length: 18 Mins
Come learn about Earth's nearest neighbor, The Moon, in this in-house full dome film. The film discusses moon phases, and explores the various moon theories and myths that civilizations developed over the years.