MOREHEAD PLANETARIUM
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Information compiled from: Morehead Planetarium Website (http://www.unc.edu/depts/mhplanet/) and Morehead Planetarium, Marguerite Schuman, University of North Carolina Print Shop, 1976.
The Morehead Planetarium Building was a gift of John Motley Morehead III (1870-1965), whose mission of educating the community lives on. As the United States space program began, the Morehead provided training for U.S. astronauts from the Mercury program to the Apollo-Soyuz program.
Morehead, who had graduated from UNC-CH in 1891 in chemistry, made much of his fortune as one of the founders of Union Carbide after having invented processes for producing acetylene gas and calcium carbide. The grandson of a former Governor of North Carolina, he also had a distinguished career as an engineer, industrialist, and ambassador.
The building was designed by the New York-based architecture firm of Eggers and Huggins, also responsible for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. The cornerstone was laid on November 29, 1947, and the planetarium was officially opened on May 10, 1949. The Morehead Planetarium building is actually home to four domes. Two of the domes are visible from the outside - the copper skinned Morehead Observatory at the East End and the outer dome of the State Dining Room at the West End. The other domes can only be seen from inside the building - the Rotunda and the Planetarium. Within the copper dome on the east side of the building is a 24-inch Cassegrain reflector telescope used for teaching, research and regular programs for the public. The State Dining Room is located beneath the copper dome on the West End of the building; the Dining Room is used for University functions.
The Genevieve B. Morehead Memorial Rotunda - walnut paneled and ringed by sixteen monolithic columns of green Ozark Mountain marble contains a collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century paintings by artists including Rembrandt, Henry Raeburn and Rembrant Peale.
The Morehead Planetarium is a 68-foot dome made of perforated stainless steel. It can become transparent by lighting it from behind instead of from inside as is customary. Special three-dimensional scenes are often built behind the dome and illuminated during programs so as to appear among the stars. The Carl Zeiss Model IV Planetarium Projector faithfully reproduces the sky of nature.
Visitor Information: Public planetarium shows Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 and 8:30 and live sky shows narrated by planetarium staff members on Fridays at 3:30 and 7:30 teach the public about the night sky, lunar landings, the travels of the Voyager spacecraft, black holes, the Big Bang and more.
For more information about Morehead Planetarium, please contact: