The William M. Staerkel Planetarium is a planetarium at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois.

Venue: Staerkel Planetarium
Town: Champaign, US

The William M. Staerkel Planetarium is a planetarium at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois. It is the second largest planetarium in the state (after the Adler Planetarium in Chicago) and has the first Carl Zeiss M1015 opto-mechanical star projector installed in the western hemisphere. The Staerkel Planetarium provides science education programs and light show entertainment to as many as 40,000 people each year. It has a 50-foot dome, seats 144, and private group and school show reservations can be made beyond the regular public offerings. Public shows are every Friday and Saturday evenings. Aside from their regular star shows, the planetarium also hosts a lecture series the first Friday of every month. The planetarium is named after Parkland College's founding president, who led the college for the first 20 years. “The dream started a long time ago. It began when a group of us, faculty members and administrators together, sat down to develop the specifications for a new college then unbuilt and of course unnamed. Since a basic function of education is to transmit the cultural heritage of a people, we were concerned that the new college would be ideally designed to help teachers accomplish that purpose. “Now over 20 years later the College continues to mature and develop, we see the dream realized with the dedication of Parkland’s Cultural Center. This is indeed a joyful occasion. To see our dreams come true after all these years gives us a wonderful feeling of pride and satisfaction as we look at this latest addition to this remarkable institution of higher education.” - William M. Staerkel, in a letter written for the October 1st 1987 dedication The William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College, built as part of the college's cultural center, was planned and designed in the late sixties as part of Phase V in the construction of Parkland College's campus. The cultural center was divided into two parts, the theatre and the planetarium, which together cost