Orange Coast College’s planetarium looks to the stars to celebrate its anniversary

Orange Coast College celebrates its planetarium’s third anniversary this month, although due to the pandemic it’s essentially been open for only about a year since its debut in 2019.

“We had just shy of one solid year of operation before we got closed down,” said planetarium director Scott Mitchell. “For the first year, year and a half of COVID, we were really limited to what we could do. We did virtual field trips with the Orange County Department of Education and then some just online content, but really toned back from what we were able to do before.”

The planetarium had to put an end to the shows and indoor visits as the global health crisis began to unfold in the spring of 2020. Mitchell said he had been in the same boat with many others who thought they would be able to reopen shortly after what was supposed to be a temporary closure.

“The target reopening date kept getting pushed back. I remember thinking it was going to be April. Then, it was June and then it would be September,” said Mitchell. “Eventually, it was spring 2022.”

The planetarium resumed operations in the last few weeks with a handful of small events for children, but it will officially reopen Saturday, March 19.

The festivities are expected to begin at 11 a.m. and continue until 2 p.m. Activities and demonstrations will be featured on the Costa Mesa campus and a workshop headed by fashion designer Paul Frank is scheduled. The first 100 attendees will receive a free souvenir button. Admission to shows will be free, but there will be a $25 fee to participate in the Frank workshop.

Additionally, the planetarium will be unveiling its meteorite exhibit, which includes about 20 specimens from the Asteroid Belt, the moon and — Mitchell hopes — Mars.

The Orange Coast College’s planetarium is celebrating its third year in operation, though it was closed during the pandemic.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)

“We’ve been kicking around the idea of doing meteorites for a long time,” said Mitchell. “We had a very, very generous donor who’s loaning his samples to us. But once we got a clearer picture of when the planetarium was going to be able to open, we really started designing the exhibit, fleshing out what we were teaching like how the solar system formed ... and planetary formation. It’s really come together over the last couple of weeks.”

The meteorite exhibit is temporary and is only expected to be around for about a year with the next exhibit expected to focus on the astronomy and aerospace industry in California.

“With the COVID rates and everything declining as they are, we feel pretty confident we’ll be able to keep it open this time. We’ve definitely missed having people in the building and being able to share astronomy with the community.

“We can’t wait to have people back here,” he said.

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