Out-of-this-world show

This Saturday marks the 94th anniversary of the first public planetarium show given at the German model for The Franklin Institute, the Deutches Museum in Munich.
Our planetarium opened on January 1st, 1934 as the second planetarium in the United States, after the Adler planetarium in Chicago (1930).
An apocryphal story is that Sam Fels traveled to Europe with Max Adler in the late 20’s where he saw the star projection system. He was so taken with the idea that he ordered one for Philadelphia without a place for it. He approached The Franklin Institute, which was in the planning stages for their new building at 20th street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Mars and Venus are now well separated in the pre-dawn eastern sky 6:30 a.m. A very thin waning crescent moon is just to the left of Mars on Tuesday morning and sneaks past Venus during the day.