The Dr. Edmond E. Griffin Planetarium at UCA offers free shows every Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. to the public. 

The Griffin Planetarium is located in the Conway Corporation Center for the Sciences on the university campus. 

Tickets for each show are first come, first serve, as the Griffin Planetarium seats 94 people in the digital dome theater where the shows take place. 

Director of Astronomical Facilities and Associate Professor of Astronomy and Physics Scott Austin said, “The projection system is optimized to immerse the audience somewhere in the universe. But in principle, the theater can project full-dome anything imaginable.”

The following are upcoming shows at Griffin Planetarium: 

• Sept. 9 and 10: Stars of the Pharaohs

• Sept. 16 and 17: River of Bears

• Sept. 23 and 24: Invaders of Mars!

• Sept. 30 and Oct. 1: Unveiling the Invisible Universe

• Oct. 7 and Oct. 8: Phantom of the Universe

• Oct. 14 and Oct. 15: Seeing! A Photon’s Journey Across Space, Time, and Mind

The planetarium has shows scheduled through December 2022.

“Currently, one-hour shows begin with a tour of the current nighttime sky from Conway; next, a retrospective of the James Webb Space Telescope images that have been released; the final 20 to 30 minutes is one of our full-dome movies,” Austin said. 

Doors open at the Griffin Planetarium 10 minutes before each show with no admittance offered once the show has begun. 

The Griffin Planetarium “serves as an astronomy and science education resource center for central Arkansas,” according to uca.edu. “The planetarium is part of the outreach component of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and as such, it supports astronomy teaching on campus, as well as offers planetarium shows to school groups and the general public.”

Austin said, “Public planetarium shows were suspended from March 2020 until March 2022.”

Except for the pandemic, Austin has offered “free public planetarium shows on a regular basis since 2000.”

“From 2000 to 2016, I did monthly public shows with the old planetarium that was located in Lewis Science Center. From 2017 to present, I have been doing weekly shows — except for the pandemic and weeks that I have taken vacation time — with the new planetarium in the Conway Corporation Center for Science,” Austin said.

“In addition to the public shows — that are also open for all UCA students — we do shows for field-trip groups,” Austin said. “I also use the planetarium for my PHYS 1401 Descriptive Astronomy course for certain topics during the semester. Any instructor on campus is welcome to contact me if there is something they want to teach their students in the full-dome environment.” 

Austin can be contacted through his UCA email address: [email protected]. 

“I recommend all of the shows,” Austin said. “They are all fun and informative.”

More information about the Dr. Edmond E. Griffin Planetarium and the current shows offered every weekend can be found at uca.edu/physics/planetarium/. UCA provides a secure giving link for donations on the website.