At the GLPA conference in Fall of 1991, Joe Tully approached me to compliment our soundtrack productions. He stated that he would like to utilize our services, but had no need for custom soundtrack work in his school district planetarium. I asked him what services a site such as his could utilize and he shared with me the need for a new type of planetarium show. He shared his ideas with me and a month or two later we sent out an 800 unit direct mail survey to see what others thought of the ideas we developed from his thoughts. We found the planetarium community was in need of shows that would incorporate the following features:

• Shows with very high levels of production quality.
• Shows that were short enough in length to leave class time for activities.
• Shows that could be combined with a slightly longer planetarium show thus behaving as a topic specific preshow.
• Shows that could address a specific educational topic without wandering all over the cosmos.
• Shows that incorporate real life science analogies and a high level of energy, while avoiding overly technical and intimidating terminology.
• Shows that would be fun for school groups and fun for the whole family.
• Shows that could run on very basic hardware packages or in the most fully equipped facilities.
• Shows that have very relaxed licensing agreements, allowing you to add materials from your slide and video archives, allowing you to re-edit so the program fits your exact needs.
• Shows that would not outdate themselves, that would have long shelf lives.
• Shows that would be very affordable.

Early in 1992 we began production on our first AstroNotes program...Sandy, Pepper, and the Eclipse. This show was first introduced at IPS 1992 at Snowbird, Utah.

The dozens of planetarium sites running this show have been elated with it's success, and most of those sites have installed our other show kits LifeStyles of the Stars and MoonWitch in recent times. And we are currently shipping our newest show, Mystery of the Missing Seasons.

One key to the success of AstroNotes lies in our philosophy regarding the show design team. We decided to contract the services of the best script authors in the planetarium community (you know these professionals), pass their work before the scrutiny of a four member review committee (you know all of these people, too!), then bring our very modern production ideas and tools into the picture to produce a new breed of planetarium show. Check our links to pages detailing the story lines and kit formats...you'll see what we mean.

www.bowentechnovation.com/planetarium/alldomeshows.htm
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