Planetarium Director: Jon Rush

ABOUT THE PLANETARIUM

2000 to 2011

Hi my name is Jon Rush. The Zions Gateway to the stars is a personal project. I started this in 2000. I got the first Planetarium from the Redland Art Gallery. It was donated to us. So Me and my wife Brenda traveled to Water Town South Dakota. we started to remove the Planetarium Dome. The dome is a astro_tec 40 foot sphere. and it seat`s 100 people.

The next thing we did is to get a full dome video system. This was very hard to find as the system is very expensive. We found it at the Baton rough Planetarium in LA. It is a skyskan system. This system is for the Redland dome. We have a Omni scan Laser for laser shows. We have a skyskan spice system as well.

Next we went to slc utah the O.C. Tanner Company Donated the Hansen Planetarium To the project. We removed the seating and then the Dome. The thater is 300 seats the dome is a 50 foot sphere. Next we removed the exhibits. And Fountain.

Next we went to Eugene, OR to the Science Factory Children`s Museum. And Picked up the minolta star projector. Spice 3 system. And sound system.

Next we went to Flagstaff. we removed the braeside Observatory. And moved it to Orderville, Utah. This is part of the matrix telescope system that i have been working on.

2000

Terry Redlin

Few artists can rival the standards of excellence achieved by Master Artist Terry Redlin over the past 30 years. He is truly one of the country's most widely collected painters of wildlife and Americana. For eight consecutive years, 1991 through 1998, Redlin has been named America's Most Popular Artist in annual gallery surveys conducted by U.S.ART magazine. His induction into U.S.ART's Hall of Fame in 1992 followed the magazine's poll of 900 galleries nationwide which, that year, placed five of Redlin's limited editions in the top 11 in popularity. Over the life of the poll, 30 prints have been included in that list. His use of earthy colors, blazing sunrises and sunsets and nostalgic themes are often cited as the reasons for his immense popularity.

Thank You Terry

1964

Hansen Planetarium

After the new library was constructed in 1964, Gail Plummer, professor of speech and drama at the University of Utah and chairman of the Salt Lake City Library board, expressed interest in converting the old library into a planetarium. Plummer had several conversations with Mrs. Beatrice M. Hansen, wife of the late George T. Hansen, in which Mrs. Hansen decided to fund the project. In 1965 she donated $400,000 to the city to build the planetarium in memory of her deceased husband. After Mrs. Hansen's death the building was renamed the Mr. and Mrs. George T. Hansen Planetarium, Space Science Library and Museum in honor of the couple. During its operation, the planetarium attracted 20% of the population of the city and had the highestpre capita pre capita attendance of any planetarium in the nation. The Hansen Planetarium continued operation until April 2003, when it outgrew the building and was replaced by the Clark Planetarium in the Gateway District.

When the Hansen Planetarium occupied the building, the center doors of the entrance pavilion were replaced by a large sheet of glass, and the center part of the steps was replaced with a fountain. A mezzanine was added above the second floor in the entrance pavilion for exhibit in the planetarium. The same firm that did the original millwork for the 1904 building worked on these new additions. The local architect for the additions was Wesley Budd. A large dome was also added onto the rear wall of the building to give the planetarium extra space for its exhibits.

03/22/11

O.C. Tanner Company

After four years of lying vacant, the O.C. Tanner Company bought the building in 2007 for $1.2 million. Before Tanner came along, two referendums to fund the empty building were rejected, but the jeweling company's clear plan got the votes it needed.The company spent two years and $24 million renovating the building, which opened in September 2009. The company itself supplied a majority of the funds ($13-15 million), and the remainder came from the community.

Upon the company's purchase of the building, O.C. Tanner's staff decided to try to mimic the original architecture as closely as possible. Because of this, the dome at the rear of the building was removed. Instead of simply demolishing the dome, however, it was systematically dismantled and donated to the Zion's Gateway to the Stars planetarium in Orderville, Utah. Also, the front staircase was restored to its original condition by removing the fountain in the center, which, coincidentally, was donated by O.C. Tanner himself.

Only three of the four walls, the sides and front, were preserved in Tanner's restoration. Since the back had already been altered by the Hansen Planetarium and there were no original images of that wall from the 1905 building, Curtis Bennett, vice president of the company's retail operations, was allowed a little freedom with that design.The rear wall now consists of glass and stone, both etched with images of the building's history. The rear wall contains the largest laser stone-carving project in the world with 18 panels covering 900 square feet (84 m2) and weighing 44,000 pounds (20,000 kg) in all.The bottom of the rear wall contains repeated images from the library in 1905, the top contains images of a galaxy (signifying the Hansen Planetarium), and the middle contains an image of the founder of the company, O.C. Tanner. The image on the glass is a dot-matrix image, but the stone imaging required a new process developed specifically for this building.

Inside the building a new limestone spiral staircase was built with a Flora Cascade chandelier hanging in the center of the spiral. The chandelier was designed by Sharon Marston and includes about 4,000 strands of fiber optics, more than 14,000 interwoven shapes made of white polymer and steel, and about 3,000 golden and amber glass leaves. Weighing 243 pounds (110 kg) and extending 26.4 feet (8.0 m) from the ceiling, the chandelier stretches nearly the entire height of the building.