WSU Planetarium

The picture on the right shows Wayne State University students visiting the planetarium in Old Main circa 1955. The hand-operated machine was one of the earliest Spitz planetarium star machines. It is interesting to note that Spitz Corporation founder Armand Spitz had an assist from Professor Albert Einstein in designing the star “ball”, a pentagonal dodecahedron.

Wayne State University built the new Spitz planetarium in 1996 as part of the major renovation of Old Main that took place at that time. The planetarium features 59 seats under a 27 foot dome. The analog Spitz 512 projector is referred to as an optical-mechanical projector. Pictured on the left is a view of the system from the front of the room; on the right we see the view from the console.