The joys of indoor star-gazing

LIGHT pollution may be spoiling the real sky, but advances in planetarium-projector technology are improving the quality of artificial ones. The best view is to be had at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, part of the new Rose Centre for Earth and Space, which opened in February. The planetarium ordered a Zeiss Mark VIII projector with so many custom modifications that the result was dubbed the Mark IX. Such is the fidelity of its representation of the night sky, says Volkmar Schorcht of Zeiss, that it is actually worth taking a pair of binoculars.