Traveling with the stars: Extending our reach with a new portable planetarium

The William J. McCallion Planetarium at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada (established 1949), is pleased to share details of the first year of outreach initiatives and statistics from its new small (6m diameter) portable planetarium. The portable planetarium, purchased with funding from the Faculty of Science, was launched in June 2022, and has the primary goal of extending astronomy-based education and outreach initiatives to underserved and underrepresented communities off campus (to supplement the fixed planetarium on campus). The portable planetarium has also allowed us to continue our reconciliation efforts and astronomy collaborations with local Indigenous communities, resulting in the co-creation of one show and further shows in development. This poster will highlight the co-creation process and some of the common questions we have received when using the portable planetarium, ranging from general astronomy topics to the planetarium system itself. We will also speak to the successes and challenges we have experienced during our first months of operation and outreach. We anticipate an increase in our outreach initiatives in our second year of use of the portable planetarium and welcome conversations from communities we may be able to visit and/or from other institutes who currently have or are seeking to set up similar programs.