I wrote this article for IMERSA, the trade group that is working to spread the word about fulldome digital technology to the planetarium community and to the themed entertainment community at large. The issue is that Most digital projectors do not produce true blacks, but instead fade to a uniform gray sky. The traditional optomechanical projectors give you the deep blacks but not the versatility of fulldome. This is prompting manufacturers to come up with combination systems and also to strive to produce blacker blacks with digital systems. The article was first published in Sept 09 in The Planetarian (International Planetarium Society quarterly) and then online at Blooloop.com here.
Photo: Central placement of the 2 JVC video projectors on either side of the GOTO CHIRON allow for 100% fulldome coverage with no starball shadow on the dome at Fujisawa, Japan the most recent HYBRID dome. Image courtesy GOTO.
