Crowd finds planetarium's reopening heavenly.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

The night sky over Eugene is back.

And you thought it went away?

Well, it did, at least at the Lane Education Service District's planetarium. Located in the same building as The Science Factory in Alton Baker Park, the planetarium reopened for business Saturday after a six-month closure.

"It's going to be interesting," said 8-year-old Scout Steckbeck, a student at Eastside Alternative School in Eugene, just moments before Saturday's show: "Summer Sky Above Eugene."

And that it was.

The planetarium's new interim director, Kevin Lane-Cummings, said he was hoping that at least "a couple of dozen" people would show up for the first show since December. And that's just what he got, as a group of about 25, young and old alike, filed into the circular, dome-shaped room to check out the spectacle.

The planetarium closed in December, a month after voters rejected a $10 million bond measure to build a science learning center at the Lane County Fairgrounds that would have included a planetarium. The bond measure would have enabled the fair board, which took over the planetarium in 2001, to keep the $450,000 SkyVision equipment donated by retired Eugene attorney John Jaqua and his wife, Robin.

It also would have avoided the layoff of planetarium director Jon Elvert, who struggled for 14 years to make a go of the educational facility.

The planetarium was able to reopen when the Lane Education Service District reached an agreement with The Science Factory, formerly known as WISTEC and located next to Autzen Stadium, to operate the planetarium.

And they hired Lane-Cummings, an enthusiastic lover of space who relates well to children and who used to run the planetarium at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

The SkyVision equipment - which turned the planetarium into a three-dimensional travel experience - is gone now, having been moved to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland. Ownership of the equipment reverted to the Jaquas after the planetarium closed, and they decided to donate it to OMSI.

So Lane-Cummings made do with the equipment he had Saturday, and that seemed all right with those at the show.

"It was always one of those things I was going to do before but never got," said Pat Murphy of Eugene, who managed to drag her husband, Dennis, to the planetarium. "And now I have the chance again. It'd be nice to be here for a full house."

Her husband agreed that it wasn't all bad sitting in a cool spot on a hot day. "It gets me out of doing yard work," Dennis said with a grin.

Jane Steckbeck, Scout's mother, said she always loved astronomy and wants to pass that on to her children. "I've always gone out and looked at the sky at night, and I just think it's cool that they're showing the sky above Eugene," she said. "It will lend some depth the next time we go out."

Michael Gerdes, 12, Scout's brother, also came along Saturday, as did Scout's friend, Sara Zarzycki, 9. Michael, a student at Spencer Butte Middle School, said he had come to the planetarium once before for a laser-light show, but being a not-so-patient person, he found it hard to sit through the entire show.

Saturday's 45-minute display, however, seemed to pique his interest.

"Will that dead star eventually become a planet?" he asked Lane-Cummings during the show, after the director had described a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that showed the nebulous gases that had broken away from a star to form a spectacular, breathtaking pattern of colors.

"No," Lane-Cummings said, "the star will remain extremely hot for millions, maybe billions, of years.

"And it's probably not worth waiting around for that," he joked.

The shows will continue every Saturday at 2 p.m. throughout the summer, showing the alignment of stars and planets that will be in the sky above Eugene that very same day. They are "live" shows, with nothing pre-recorded. Audience members are encouraged to ask questions during the show, which points out the planets we can see if we go out later that night, constellations, the Milky Way, and the sun's path across the sky during the day.

All of which was indeed "interesting" for young Scout who, when the show was finished and the lights came back on, exclaimed: "That was cool."

`SUMMER SKY ABOVE EUGENE'

What: Weekly shows every Saturday at 2 p.m. at The Science Factory's Planetarium.

Where: 2300 Leo Harris Parkway in Alton Baker Park.