In early October the Texas Museum of Science & Technology’s temporary location in Cedar Park began showing educational movies and star tours at the facility’s new planetarium.

TXMOST Executive Director Torvald Hessel said school groups have begun seeing the shows.

“[In] Cedar Park and Austin, we’ve never had a planetarium,” Hessel said. “So we have two types of customers—people who know planetariums or people who have never seen one.”

Guests who attended planetarium shows from 20 to 30 years ago might come expecting to see only a star show, Hessel said. But at the indoor dome, which is located in the museum’s 1220 Toro Grande Drive facility, TXMOST will show star presentations and longer motion pictures.

The HD digital projection system can show interactive tours of the night sky, adjusting for time of year or cloud cover, but also movies about space travel or science history, Hessel said.

The planetarium can seat about 50 people, or more without removable chairs, Hessel said.

Each show lasts about 50 minutes long, including the introductory star presentation.

Tickets cost $5 for children, between ages 3 and 12, and $7.50 for adults. Guests who purchase tickets for the museum's temporary Exploratorium exhibit, which is expected to open Nov. 18, can purchase separate planetarium admissions for $5 each. Group rates for both attractions, such as for school field trips, are also available.

The museum's first temporary exhibit, Body Worlds, closed Nov. 8.

Weekday shows (PDF) begin at 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Fridays include additional shows at 9 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday showtimes vary (PDF).

Body Worlds, which features posed plasticized figures of real human bodies, will stay at the museum until Nov. 8. Then that traveling attraction will be replaced by about 30 exhibits from Exploratorium, the San Francisco-based art and science museum. Hessel said the Exploratorium exhibits may open as early as mid-November, yet will definitely be open before Thanksgiving.

When the new exhibits arrive, the museum will offer new admissions fees: $11 for children or teenagers age 17 and younger, $13 for students or senior citizens and $8 for group admission.

The new ticket prices will include Exploratorium exhibits and unlimited planetarium shows.

Hessel said the museum’s board of directors plans to remove the old artificial grass from the floor of the building—a former indoor soccer training facility. Museum leaders will also hold fundraisers for a full-time, permanent museum and planetarium in Central Texas, he said.

“[The planetarium is] proof of concept to show we know what we’re doing, to show there are customers for this, there’s interest,” Hessel said. “This [dome] is going to be full. There will be lines out of the door. Fantastic. You’re standing in line, you’re having an incredible experience, and anybody that leaves says, ‘We need to make [a larger planetarium] happen.’”

This story has been updated.