Marietta College,<\/a> the Anderson Hancock Planetarium offers programs to the public so visitors can experience different wonders of the universe on campus.<\/p>\nMarietta College President Kathleen Dougherty said the planetarium has received significant upgrades.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has gotten significant technical upgrades with the support of Carol Hancock, an emeritus professor who is one of the lead donors to these upgrades, as well as support from the United States Department of Agriculture,\u201d Dougherty said.<\/p>\n
Dougherty said the planetarium is an important part of the college\u2019s science outreach in Southeast Ohio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis continues to be part of the way we engage and help bring science to Southeast Ohio,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cWe are privileged to have a state-of-the-art facility that is very rare for a college, especially a college of our size. We are excited that it will continue to allow us to do great physics education, great astronomy education for generations of students to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ann Bragg, director of the Anderson Hancock Planetarium, said the upgraded system enhances what visitors see and hear during programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are now, with the new system, going to be 4K high resolution movies that play on our dome and that will immerse people in some of what is out there in the universe,\u201d Bragg said.<\/p>\n
Bragg said a typical visit includes a live look at the night sky, with the dome used to display constellations, planets and fly-throughs of the solar system and beyond.<\/p>\n
Programs typically wrap up with a live Q&A so visitors can ask questions about what they saw.<\/p>\n
Bragg said the facility is a unique resource for the region because large planetariums are not common in this part of the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a fantastic facility for people in the region,\u201d Bragg said. \u201cWhile there are many planetariums in some of the larger urban areas in Ohio, like Columbus and Cleveland, we do not have large planetariums in this part of the state. We are fairly unique in that respect. We\u2019re also somewhat unique in offering live Q&A and live presentations in almost all of our educational offerings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dougherty said the upgrades will help the planetarium continue serving students and visiting school groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was our opportunity to reopen the planetarium to our community that has sharper vision, better visuals, better sound, and really allows this facility to continue to contribute to learning about science, the sky, and our environment for hundreds of schoolchildren every year,\u201d Dougherty said.<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note: The video for this story will be added once it airs. Please check back for the updated video.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WTAP. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARIETTA, Ohio. (WTAP) -The Anderson Hancock Planetarium has officially reopened at Marietta College for students and the public.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":{"0":"post-607017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}