Pasco — Today's ground-breaking ceremony for the new $1.2 million planetarium on CBC’s Pasco campus ushers in the third component of the college's astronomy program, complementing the Moore Observatory, also on the Pasco campus, and the Pacific Northwest Regional Observatory that is being developed near Wallula Gap.

The planetarium will be available for community use, adding a venue for guest lecturers who want to make use of its 30-foot dome that acts as a projection screen and other multimedia events such as laser shows.

The planetarium’s projector will be connected to computers that can capture images from observatories, including the Moore Observatory and possibly the Wallula Gap observatory, which will be the new home of the telescope from the former Rattlesnake Mountain Observatory.