Chabot Space & Science Center

Located in Oakland, California, the Chabot Space and Sciences Center is a science learning facility with exhibits, planetariums, a large screen theatre, hands-on activities and three powerful telescopes.

The Centre is a further expansion of a public observatory providing astronomy and science education initiatives for San Francisco Bay schools and residents since 1883. It is named after Anthony Chabot, father of hydraulic mining and charity at the original Oakland Observatory. The center has been located on the western edge of Redwoods Regional Park since 2000.

 

History

The Oakland Observatory opened in 1883 with a donation to the City of Oakland from Anthony Chabot. In the immediate vicinity of downtown Oakland the Oakland original Observatory was used for the dream of the residents. For decades, she also served to measure time with its transit telescope as the official timekeeping station for the entire Bay area.

In 1915, due to rising light pollution and urban congestion, the observatory moved to the site of its Mountain Boulevard. The plant was expanded greatly in the mid-1960s. In this time, Oakland Unified School District staff and volunteers staffed primarily the Chabot Science Center, as it was called. Seismic safety concerns closed access to the original observatory by public school students in 1977. Observatory buildings were open to the public, but school events were limited to outskirts and the planetarium. 

In 1989, the Chabot Science Observatory and the City of Oakland, the Oakland Unified School District and the East Bay Regional Park Distrikt, in partnership with the Eastbay Astronomy Society, acknowledged the need to re-establish complete access to the facility, whether through repair or relocation. In 1992, they were acknowledged as a non-profit organization. Chabot 's CEO Dr Michael D. Reynolds led the project, and the building of a new 88.000 square meter (8,200 m2) Science Center began in May 1998. The project started in October 1996.

The company changed its name from Chabot Observatory & Science Center to Chabot Space & Science Center in January 2000, announcing the opening of the new building. To explain both the wide-ranging and technical progress to the new science Center, the new name was chosen to help reflect the organization's emphasis on astronomy and space science.

 

Main Attractions

• Two planetariums: a "full dome digital projection system" with various shows running daily, and a Zeiss Universarium fiber-optic projector with weekly shows.

• The Tien MegaDome Theater, a 70-foot (21 m) dome screen auditorium which presented various IMAX-like shows.

• The Challenger Learning Center, a hands-on simulated space mission environment where 8 teams work together to complete a mission.

• Many changing exhibits, full of hands-on displays, that highlight space and science topics. As of August 18, 2006, there are nine open exhibits.