Introduce your students to the wonders of space with our Skylab. Skylab is a portable planetarium providing astronomy programs presented by a professional astronomy educator.
An inflatable astronomy laboratory for your school, the dome is 10.5 feet tall and requires floor space of 25 x 25 feet, along with a nearby outlet. It can be set up indoors in a gym, lunchroom, empty room, or on a stage, and can generally accommodate an entire classroom of students and teachers. It takes about 5 minutes to switch groups in the dome, as the dome deflates when entering & exiting, and takes some time to reinflate. We aim to arrive 1 hour before the scheduled program begins to get set up, and are usually packed up and gone within 30 minutes of the scheduled program ending.
Click on any of the show links below for a preview and/or description. Shows are fulldome recordings projected onto the inside of the dome's walls, except for the live presentations noted below, which make use of freely available, high quality astronomy software.
Current Shows
This flexible and valuable teaching tool is available for $215 for one hour, with each additional hour costing $70. Payment can be made by credit card over the phone or by check on the day of the program. Your booking will include a qualified presenter and delivery & setup of the Skylab. If the destination is outside of a 25-mile radius from the Peoria Riverfront Museum, the IRS Standard Mileage Rate will also be charged (round trip), plus a travel fee of $15 per hour (round trip & rounded to the nearest hour). For questions and more information, or to reserve the Skylab, please contact Nick Rae at nrae@peoriariverfrontmuseum.org or 309-863-3025.
Bringing the Stars Closer to You!
An astronomy expert will give your group a tour of the current night sky using our 8-inch Celestron telescope (pictured below). We will show your group the Moon (if visible), current planets, and deep-sky objects (galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae) with the telescope. Using a green laser pointer, we will also point out constellations in the real sky, and maybe share a star story or two!
Program is subject to weather conditions. Payment is due upon arrival.
Cost: $150 per hour of programming. If the destination is outside of a 25-mile radius from the Peoria Riverfront Museum, the IRS Standard Mileage Rate will also be charged (round trip), plus a travel fee of $15 per hour (round trip & rounded to the nearest hour).
Scheduling: contact Nick Rae at nrae@peoriariverfrontmusem.org or 309-863-3025.
A few objects you may be able to see and approximations of how they will look, from left to right: Andromeda Galaxy, Jupiter and its moons, Orion Nebula, Ring Nebula.
Tell us what space topic you’d like us to present on, and one of our astronomy experts will be there with pictures, videos, and answers to people’s questions. You might be interested in a presentation on the Apollo moon landings, for example; or maybe on lunar and solar eclipses; but really, any space topic you’re interested in is something we’d likely provide a stellar presentation on: just ask!
Cost: $75 per presentation (30-60 min including Q&A). If the destination is outside of a 25-mile radius from the Peoria Riverfront Museum, the IRS Standard Mileage Rate will apply (round trip), plus a travel fee of $15 per hr (round trip & rounded to the nearest hour).
Scheduling: contact Renae Kerrigan at 309-863-3030 or rkerrigan@peoriariverfrontmuseum.org
