By Lookout Staff

July 17, 2025 -- On August 8, Santa Monica College (SMC) will give sky watchers a "sneak peek" at the school's new planetarium, which is set to open in late September, college officials announced this week.

The free, live virtual preview will take place at 8 p.m. following The Night Sky Show at 7 p.m. and offers a behind-the-scenes look at the new dome presented by Lecturer Sarah Vincent.

The new planetarium, which began construction in 2021, will replace the original structure built in 1968, said Grace Smith, SMC's director of communications.

The original 60-seat planetarium, which opened in May 1971, featured a Minolta MS-8 planetarium projector that cast the starry sky onto the theater's 28-foot diameter, according to the planetarium's website.

The planetarium was closed in July 1992 for remodeling and remained shuttered after being damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which caused more than $80 million in damage to the campus.

Both the planetarium and its Minolta projector were "severely damaged and remained unavailable for another three-and-a-half years.

The planetarium was rebuilt with funds from FEMA and a gift from John Drescher, a local aircraft design engineer who "held nine patents related to his World War II design work" including "an important bomb release mechanism."

"A generous millionaire with a modest lifestyle and many friends," Drescher created a six-acre artisans' haven known as "Drescherville" in the area around Berkeley and Olympic, "where he lived a simple life with a pet parakeet and an adopted rat."

The sprawling complex, which was the first home of SCI-Arc, included a three -story underground bomb shelter that was sealed off and shuttered ("Council Paves Demo of Storied Structure," September 15, 2009).

In 1996, Drescher donated $530,000 to SMC "to help upgrade its rebuilt planetarium with a state-of-the-art Evans & Sutherland Digistar projection system, the first of its kind in California."

The Drescher Planetarium, named in his honor, opened on June 6, 1997. Drescher, who died on February 8, 2020 in Santa Monica left a $1.5 million bequest to the college, the largest private donation in SMC history.

The SMC Board of Trustees renamed the Technology Building that housed the planetarium in Drescher's honor.

To attend the online show, the Zoom software must be installed on the viewer’s computer. A free download is available at zoom.com.

More information is available online at smc.edu/planetarium or by calling 310-434-3005.