Nestled between English department offices and classrooms on the third floor of Angell Hall is the only place in Ann Arbor where you can see almost the entire night sky at any time of day.

The Angell Hall Planetarium, where five University classes are held, can project about 7,000 stars along with coordinate systems, constellation diagrams and planets. The planetarium underwent an $800,000 remodel in 2004, which included the installation of the Zeiss Skymaster — a $350,000 projector that can "simulate the sky from anywhere on earth," said Astronomy Prof. Patrick Seitzer, the project manager for the planetarium upgrade.

The Zeiss projector enables people to see the sky from either the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, Seitzer explained. Within the dome of the planetarium is a projector with two star balls, which are each covered in laser cut holes and facets to project a different hemisphere of the night sky. It shows the lunar orbit and specific stars and seamlessly rotates to the other star ball, making it possible to see what the sky looks like in Chile as well as in Ann Arbor.

"You can see (the sky) from the South as (if) you’re at one of the Michigan facilities in Chile,” Seitzer said of the projector.

Though another planetarium exists in the University's Exhibit Museum of Natural History, the one in Angell Hall offers a more expansive star field and a mechanical projector instead of a digital projector.

“(The Zeiss Skymaster) is optimized and set up to do one thing only and that is to show the stars,” Seitzer said. “(A digital projector) can do all sorts of fancy things, but it has a lower resolution and less dynamic range so it’s really not optimized for showing the stars.”

Another notable part of the planetarium is its capability to show the effects of city lights on the night sky. This is done through a system in which red lights around the periphery of the planetarium imitate Ann Arbor city lights. Viewers can see the projections once their eyes adapt to the dark, which usually takes about 15 minutes.

Rackham student Shannon Schmoll teaches an astronomy mini-course called Naked Eye Astronomy, which holds its classes in the planetarium. On the first day of her course, Schmoll said she shows her students the difference between a light-polluted sky and a clear night sky so they appreciate the contrast.

“I go straight from (the red lights) to turning off ... all the lights that I can,” she said. “I turn off all the classroom lights, I turn off all the computer monitors, everything.”

As the lights disappear and only the night sky remains, the class usually reacts with surprise.

"There’s almost always an audible 'aw’ going on with just how many stars you can see,” Schmoll said. “There’s a wonder there that I think is really important that the planetarium can bring out.”

The lights that surround the University are a contributing factor in light pollution that distorts students' perception of the night sky, Seitzer said.

“There’s more light going up from the University of Michigan than there is coming down from the stars,” he said.

LSA junior Emma Wormser recently completed Schmoll’s mini-course this fall. Wormser said she enjoyed having a class in the planetarium and would recommend it to others.

“Rather than just using slides, we actually had a point of reference, and we could look at the stars and see exactly what the teacher was talking about,” Wormser said.

For Schmoll, one of the benefits of the Angell Hall Planetarium is its capability to show the night sky clearly at any time of any day.

“There’s no other place where you can go and sit underneath the stars in the middle of the day and just ogle at the greatness of the universe," Schmoll said.