For two decades, the Planetarium has encouraged curiosity and shared the stars with Northeast Texas.

East Texas A&M welcomed around 450 visitors to campus on Feb. 21 to celebrate the anniversary of the university's Planetarium at the Keith D. McFarland Science Building. For 20 years, the Planetarium has served as both a gateway to the cosmos and a first glimpse of campus life for thousands of K-12 students across Northeast Texas.

Gateway to the Stars

Located inside the McFarland Science Building, the Planetarium features a 40-foot dome and state-of-the-art Digistar projection technology capable of rendering high-resolution star fields, deep-space imagery and immersive simulations of the night sky. What began in 2006 with a Digistar 3 system has evolved into a Digistar 7 platform powered by five 4K digital projectors, delivering approximately 20K resolution across the dome.

“The biggest difference is the quality of the projectors,” said ET astronomy professor Kent Montgomery, who was hired as the original Planetarium director in 2005. “You're getting really high resolution that we never had when we first started.”

When the Planetarium officially opened to the public in January 2006, it quickly exceeded expectations.

“We were hoping to hit our first 10,000 visitors in the first year,” said Dr. Cheri Davis, current Planetarium director. “I think we reached that mark in about five months. We were extremely busy.”

In its early years, the facility operated six days a week, hosting daytime school field trips and public shows on Friday and Saturday evenings. Today, roughly 70% of the Planetarium's audience continues to come from K–12 school groups, many of whom have never been to a university or Planetarium before.

“For many students, this is their first experience at a university,” Montgomery said. “Their visit to the Planetarium introduces them to the university environment.”

That early exposure can have a lasting impact. Davis said she regularly encounters college students who first visited the Planetarium on elementary school field trips.

“They'll say, ‘When I was in the third grade, I took a field trip up here, and I think you did my show,'” Davis said. “We still hear that quite a bit.”

Beyond public programming, the Planetarium plays a vital role in university instruction. Davis and Montgomery use the dome to teach astronomy and science education courses, allowing students to explore celestial mechanics and astronomical phenomena in a fully immersive setting.

“It's not just a picture in a book anymore,” Davis said. “Students can live through it. They can actually absorb those things and have that immersive feeling.”

Afternoon of Wonder

During the 20^th anniversary celebration on Saturday, blue, white and gold balloons floated around the lobby of the McFarland Science Building as families, alumni and community members gathered to celebrate. Starry tablecloths covered display tables, and a refreshments station offered cookies, hot cocoa and lemonade as visitors filtered between activities.

Inside a nearby classroom, members of the Society of Physics Students created a hands-on “wow factor” for guests of all ages. Children and parents experimented with powerful magnets, watched sparks leap from a Van de Graaff generator and tested the Zube Tube, whose cosmic tones sounded like laser blasts straight out of a science fiction movie. Throughout the afternoon, physics students answered questions and encouraged young visitors to explore how the universe works.

Groups were ushered beneath the 40-foot dome of the Planetarium for 15-minute demonstrations featuring trailers from regular programming. Guests were transported through high-resolution star fields and alongside deep space before concluding with a roller coaster ride through space that left many in the audience cheering.

Before the first showing, former university president Keith D. McFarland addressed the crowd. McFarland, for whom the science building is named, served the university for 39 years as a professor, department head, dean and president, and his work was instrumental in bringing the Planetarium to ETAMU.

“It's been even more successful than I thought it would be,” McFarland said. “I knew it would be a success, but now a couple hundred thousand people have visited over the last 20 years, and it's just satisfying to see.”

He described the Planetarium as one of his “crowning achievements,” emphasizing its importance as an outreach tool for elementary, middle and high school students across Northeast Texas.

“I was influenced by a trip to a planetarium when I was 11 years old,” he said. “That played a part in my ultimate decision to move forward with this building and the Planetarium specifically.”

As guests exited the dome, excited voices echoed through the lobby.

“That was super cool!” one child exclaimed.

“Wow! Did you see that?” another said.

Hundreds of visitors experienced the demonstrations inside the dome during the celebration. Attendees also received free T-shirts, stress balls and key chains, and more than $4,000 in prizes were awarded at the conclusion of the event.

For Davis, who will retire in June after more than 20 years of service with the Planetarium, the event reflected the collective effort behind its success.

“It truly takes a village,” she said. “Everyone who contributed had a hand in the success of today.”

Two decades after opening its doors, the Planetarium continues to do what it set out to do—spark curiosity, expand access to science and share the stars with Northeast Texas.

From family traditions built around its popular Christmas program to hands-on instruction for future educators and scientists, the Planetarium blends entertainment, outreach and academic rigor. For students considering astronomy or STEM fields at East Texas A&M, the dome is more than a venue—it's a launch point.