Astronomy.com | Adrift with a Sea of Stars

Astronomy.com | Adrift with a Sea of Stars Adrift with a Sea of Stars
The Queen Mary 2 will be home to the first planetarium ever to be installed on a cruise ship.
by Kelly Kizer Whitt

The Queen Mary 2 will host the world's first onboard planetarium.
Cunard Line © 2003

A brand-new cruise ship being built for the Cunard cruise line will feature the world's first onboard planetarium. The Queen Mary 2 is scheduled to embark on her maiden voyage in January 2004 with a theater equipped with Sky-Skan Inc.'s SkyVision video and DigitalSky planetarium system. The 150-seat theater will present star shows three times each day. Additional highlights of the onboard astronomy program will include international guest speakers and "after an evening star-identification session in the planetarium," says Sky-Skan president Steve Savage, "guests will be invited to accompany their presenter toward a top deck to view the real night sky."

Depending on the specific cruise, guests will be able to view either the Northern or Southern Hemisphere's highlights. The Queen Mary 2 will regularly make six-day transatlantic crossings along with special trips to the Caribbean, Rio de Janeiro, and other sites in Europe and the Americas. A glance at a world map showing light pollution makes it immediately evident that the only light pollution at sea is that which you bring with you.

The watery passage between the United States and Europe hosts inky black skies.
P. Cinzano, F. Falchi (Univ. of Padova), C. D. Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center)

The Queen Mary 2 will carry 2,620 passengers and is estimated to cost about $800 million. It will be the largest, longest, tallest, and widest passenger ship ever built. The Queen Mary 2's planetarium joins over two dozen permanent SkyVision installations around the world, including one at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Cunard Line has had a long and illustrious history since its beginning in 1840. Its ships are renowned for providing luxury accommodations for passengers crossing the Atlantic and even served their countries in times of war. In 1915 during World War I the Germans sank the Cunard liner Lusitania, taking approximately 1,201 lives. Three years earlier, Cunard's Carpathia was first on the scene of the disastrous 1912 sinking of the Titanic and picked up survivors.

05/15/2003