Visitors will enjoy brighter and more colorful images on the dome at Cernan Earth and Space Center in River Grove after a new JVC laser phosphor projector was installed.
“The original projector was installed in 2015,” explained Kris Kovach McCall, Cernan’s director. “There is a certain estimated lifespan of a projector like that based on the number of hours it’s run because the hardware itself also takes a beating.”
McCall said Cernan started having problems with the hardware three years ago. They finally discovered the reason for the problem but weren’t able to get the necessary part to repair it.
“Lamps were also becoming a little bit harder to acquire,” she added.
In addition, the technology has changed.
“Instead of high-energy arc lamps, they are now using laser phosphor,” McCall said. “It was time to upgrade the technology. This was also an opportunity to improve what we were doing.”
To help in the decision-making process, McCall chose Philip Groce, president of Helping Planetariums Succeed LLC.
Most planetarium vendors are looking for larger projects. Although he has done large projects, “Groce kind of specializes in the little guys,” McCall said. “He consulted with us beforehand, did a site visit, and confirmed measurements. He was a huge asset to the success of the project.”
“I was the design consultant for the project,” Groce noted. “I determined what projector was going to be used as a replacement projector and how we would proceed in making this transfer from the old projector to the new projector work with the least amount of cost involved.”
In addition to being expensive, the old lamps were degrading faster, they discovered.
“Theoretically, they could last up to a thousand hours but the image rapidly degraded after about 800 hours,” Groce said.
The arc lamps cost between $4,000 and $5,000 each and aged every time they shut down the projector. The lamp had to be replaced every 24 weeks, he said.
Groce added companies weren’t servicing projectors that had been discontinued for seven years.
“There was no way to repair it,” Groce said. “It was at its end of life. It still worked but we knew it was just a matter of time before it ceases to do so.”
Plus, newer projectors put out brighter images, Groce said.
They chose a super high contrast projector, designed primarily for helicopter simulators and jet fighter simulators.
“JVC was able to offer a replacement projector at a reduced price,” Groce said.
They were hoping to locate a projector that would accept the current lens, and they did.
“We have a very special lens that was manufactured by Konica Minolta specifically for this kind of purpose — to project the image across the entire surface of the dome,” McCall said. “The lens itself is quite expensive.”
In addition, they were able to modify the mount so it could be reused, McCall said. This was another large cost savings.
The operating system was also reusable because it had been replaced after the projector had been in service for four or five years.
The total cost of the project for Triton College was $109,250, which included a $6,000 consulting fee.
“It was a real bargain to do this,” Groce said, referring to all the savings they accrued by trading in the old system, keeping the existing lens, and reusing the mount. He noted that without those savings, the new projector would have cost about $400,000.
Groce said his company “found a way to cost effectively give a projection system that is over twice as bright as the old system and has super-high contrast.”
Installing the new projector took less than four days.
“The time leading up to it was quite a bit longer,” McCall reported.
Groce first visited Cernan in July 2024. JVC, the company that created the projector, didn’t order it until late January of 2025. It arrived in the United States in June 2025. It was checked and tested in Salt Lake City before being sent to Cernan.
The new projector has greatly improved the view at Cernan, according to McCall.
“It is considerably brighter than the projector that we had,” she said. “And the color reproduction is better. The resolution is the same but the image is brighter and more colorful.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.