By Lookout Staff

November 4, 2025 -- The Santa Monica College (SMC) Planetarium will resume its live Friday evening shows this month at a new state-of-the- art dome that began construction in 2021.

The inaugural show on November 14 kicks off with the Night Sky Show at 7 p.m., followed by the feature presentation “Welcome to the Universe,” which explores the cosmic web and the Milky Way.

The new Planetarium in the recently opened LEED Gold-certified Mathematics + Science Building on the Main Campus features a 9-meter diameter dome and an Evans & Sutherland (E&S) Digistar 4K System with full multimedia show capabilities, college officials said.

The inaugural show presented by Planetarium lecturer Sarah Vincent "explores the large-scale structure of the cosmic web, then takes a closer look at Earth's little region of the Milky Way," event organizers said. A brief audience Q&A follows the show.

November's lineup wraps up for the Thanksgiving holidays with a show on November 21 titled “Lunar Tour, also presented by Vincent.

The show "tours Luna from orbit, then explores some famous craters and Apollo landing sites." There is also a brief audience Q&A following the show.

The 8 p.m. Feature Shows explore a particular topic of interest in more depth and from time to time, weather permitting, includes a telescope viewing session in the new SMC Observatory.

The new Observatory features a 0.7-meter CDK700 telescope, one of the largest available for public viewing in the Greater Los Angeles area.

The planetarium also plans to schedule occasional Sunday afternoon matinees in the near future. SMC officials said. Details will be posted on the planetarium's webpage at smc.edu/planetarium.

During construction, the Planetarium offered free, live virtual shows using the Zoom platform.

The new planetarium replaces the original structure that was built in 1968 and opened three years later. The 60-seat planetarium featured a Minolta MS-8 planetarium projector "that cast the starry sky onto the theater's 28-foot diameter," according to the planetarium's website.

General admission tickets for the new Planetarium are currently available at introductory reduced prices. The cost is $7 ($4 for children ages 3 to 12) for a single show or telescope-viewing session.

Tickets for a full evening with both shows cost $14 general admission ($8 for children ages 3 to 12). A $1 processing fee is charged for each ticket. Tickets may be purchased at smc.edu/tickets. Parking for the shows is free.