Cradle of Aviation’s IMAX® Theater is Go for Launch

Cradle of Aviation’s IMAX® Theater is Go for Launch

Forget the popcorn at Long Island’s newest theater. Even if they sold it at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, you wouldn’t have time to eat it inside the region’s only IMAX® theater on Long Island. On May 20th, the Cradle of Aviation opens its doors on a$100 million complex that not only features 70 historic aircraft but a four story IMAX screen that is expected to premiere the breath taking film Space Station that captures the construction and operational use of the International Space Station orbiting some 220 miles over our heads.

As the first-ever IMAX 3D space film, Space Station transports audiences to the International Space Station to experience life in space.Floating alongside the first men and women to inhabit the new station,audiences will literally feel a part of the mission taking place 220 miles above Earth. Directed and filmed in space by the astronauts, Space Station 3D is the story of a unique partnership between 16 nations building a laboratory in outer space.

The IMAX Experience® is made possible through leading-edge technology that begins with a film frame 10 times the size of a standard 35mm film frame to create the extraordinary crispness and depth of field for which 15/70 films are known.Each IMAX film frame is roughly the size of a business card. The large IMAX film magazines,used for filming in the cargo bay, which weigh nearly 80 pounds when fully loaded into the specially designed IMAX 3D space cameras, shoot only about eight minutes of footage each. That means the astronauts were kept particularly busy while shooting from the unique vantage point of space.

However, the use of the largest film frame in motion picture history translates into images of unsurpassed clarity and impact on the unique IMAX screen. The Cradle of Aviation has an IMAX ® theater with 340 perforated aluminium panels pieced together like an igloo to form the dome screen. Nearly a quarter of the dome's inside surface is actually tiny holes, which allow the sound to pour through from the 44 speakers concealed behind the panels.

Projecting the film is a technological feat in itself. The movie is stored on reels the size of tractor tires that must be loaded onto a hand-built projector as big as a Volkswagen Beetle. The loading process is done beneath the theater, inside a dust-free projection and operator's room that is visible through windows as the audience prepares to enter the theater. At the start of the show, the 1,500 pound projector is lifted on an elevator some 22 feet into the theater's seating area.

The 15,000-watt xenon lamp used to project the image onto the screen is so bright that, if it were placed onthe moon, it could be seen from Earth. The lamp's surface reaches 1,300 degreesFahrenheit, requiring a cooling system to pump five gallons of water and 800 cubic feet of air around the bulb each minute.

Explained Ed Smits, Chief Executive Officer of the museum, “Because the IMAX Experience® puts you in the centre of the action, many viewers will leave with the impression that they have been floating throughout the space station working with their fellow astronauts. When they land they will have a chance to see how we get there and what role Long Island played in allowing mankind to reach for the stars.”

The Cradle of Aviation Museum is located on Charles Lindbergh Blvd., off of Exit M4 from the MeadowbrookParkway and adjacent to Nassau Community College. It opens to the public on May20th with IMAX® shows each hour from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.