You can see the entire universe at a planetarium's dome theater in Old Town.
The planetarium at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science hosts a number of daily programs.
Technician and show presenter Jason Zermeno said his favorite program is "Enchanted Skies."
"The first thing that you can expect is the traditional planetarium view, looking up at the sky from the ground," he said. "Now we can jump out quickly to look down at the Earth, and we'll be looking at real satellite imagery. We can then fly out into the solar system. We can go out to anybody or any planet or moon or asteroid that's decent-sized and land on it and look at the sky from there, and then we can go all the way out to the level of galaxies and look back at all of the galaxies in the universe. It's pretty fun."
Another big draw is First Friday Fractals, which happens the first Friday of each month at 6, 7 and 8 p.m. The show has been selling out five days in advance, Zermeno said.
"They vary, because it's a live show, and it's done by Dr. Jonathan Wolfe, who is a neuroscientist at UNM," he said. "He's also the fractal guy, the fractal man. He's got the big fractal balloons. They're always at Balloon Fiesta, and he goes throughout the year with the fractal balloon. If it's a big, tie-dye balloon, that's him."
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Wolfe creates fractal images that move and change colors. These are infinitely complex - no matter how far you zoom in, every tiny part looks the same as the overall shape.
"He talks about math and chaos theory and fractal geometry, and so it's kind of a lecture and a video show," Zermeno said. "And people have been coming back to it over and over. We sell out every single show, so you have to get your tickets very early at this point. They won't be selling them at the door unless something weird happens."
Tickets are available thro-ugh TicketMaster.com and at
FractalFoundation.org. They're $8 for adults, $7 for seniors and $5 for kids and students.
Laurel Ladwig, a show developer at the planetarium, said there is a show called "Night of the Titanic." The footage was developed in Houston.
"It explores the Earth science conditions that went into the tragedy of the Titanic," she said. "It takes you through that night and what happened. There's a laundry list of what went wrong that night."
Zermeno said it's mostly about the ship, but the show also throws in some astronomy.
"You can imagine yourself floating in the water as the boat is going down, with a rudder dripping water over your head as it sinks into the water," he said. "That's one of the scenes in the show."
UNM professor John McGraw teaches an astronomy 101 class at the planetarium for about 40 students Monday and Wednesday nights.
"Astronomy is a very attractive science - everybody likes it - and, therefore, you can teach science, mathematics, engineering all under the guise of astronomy," McGraw said. "People will really like it, and I try to disguise all natural sciences as astronomy."
He said using the dome theater as the classroom backdrop makes the class more engaging for students.
"You can explain the positions that planets have in their orbits or in the sky, or you could immediately make the statements and dim the lights and show the motions of the planets, and there's instantaneous, 'Aha, I see. That's what it all means,'" McGraw said.
He will teach the same class next semester. He said there's enough room to double the class.
"The reviews that I get from previous classes have been really very good, so if other students would like to try it, we'll have another 40 seats available if there was interest among students."
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science planetarium
1801 Mountain Road N.W.
For more information, call 841-2800
