The Morehead Planetarium and Science Center is a planetarium located on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).
Opened in 1949. It was used to teach astronomical navigation skills to the Gemini and Apollo astronauts. Until the late 1990s, the planetarium housed one of the world’s largest Copernican models of the solar system. The institution is named after UNC alumnus John Motley Morehead ‘3, who invested more than three million dollars in its development.
Morehead Planetarium is one of the oldest and largest planetariums in the United States. More than 7 million people visited it in 2009. It is a division of UNC, one-third funded by government sources, another one-third by ticket and gift sales, and the other third by donations and grants.
The planetarium opened on May 10, 1949, after seventeen months of construction. It was the sixth planetarium built in the United States and the first in the South. Designed by the same architects who created the plan for the Jefferson Memorial. The construction cost, more than $23 million at 2010s rates, made it the most expensive building ever built in North Carolina at the time. The official opening ceremony was held on May 10, 1949.
Morehead Observatory.
The Morehead Observatory, located on the top floor of the planetarium, houses a Perkin-Elmer system reflector used for the Physics and Astronomy Department, which has filters on it to block out city light.