The Ohio State Planetarium

I saw Marissa C.‘s review and snapped up a free ticket to the next available Planetarium show, which happened to be in December. You make reservations online through eventbrite, and they will email you confirmation, directions, and information about parking.
On the day of the show, the weather was pretty terrible, so even though the event was supposed to be a full-​house, it was only about half full. The planetarium is on the 5^th floor of Smith Lab, and there were signs on the doors pointing you the right way. There was no need to print out your email confirmation as the hosts just checked you off a list on an iPad.
The space itself is pretty small and low-​key, which I wasn’t expecting at all. However, the director, who gave the presentation, was full of enthusiasm and excitement for the event, and the children in the audience really enjoyed the show.

We hit the OSU planetarium in early December. The tickets are free, you just have to reserve them, which is a big plus; the space is cozy and comfortable.
The program we watched was pretty good, but very basic – meant for all ages and all levels of space education. If you don’t know much about space, or want to take your kids to a cool space event, go to the planetarium for sure! The show we saw detailed what you could see in the night sky in Autumn from Ohio, and what people could see on the other side of the world. There was good general information.
If you’re more experienced, you might want to go to go to see the night sky in a way you can’t really see in Columbus (cos light pollution, yo), but you probably won’t learn a whole lot of new stuff. I’m hoping to see a few advanced programs pop up now and then!

The planetarium officially reopened on 10/​12/​2013, and wow, does this place look good! The scarlet and gray chairs are large and really comfortable. The projector is really neat — during our show, I heard a lot of gasps of delight and amazement from the crowd as its different features were shown. The images are crisp and really impressive, and it easily handles travel through space or time, or both space and time simultaneously. The projector also does other bodies like satellites, and at one point, our presenter had us «following» the Voyager spacecraft, the first to leave our solar system. It was a very neat show, and they offer them for free. The renovation was top-​notch; this place is completely updated now!