Relationship between Faithfulness and Preference of Stars in a Planetarium

Abstract A planetarium imitates a starry sky with physical and technical limitations using a dome, projector, and light source. It is widely used for entertainment, and astronomy and physics educations. In our previous study, we investigated the evaluation for faithful reproduction of a star field in a planetarium by performing psychometric experiments with 20 observers for plural projection patterns with different reproduction factors (color, luminance, and size of projected stars). In this study, we investigate the relationship between faithfulness and preference of a star field in a planetarium through a psychometric experiment with 47 observers. The experimental procedure followed the previous study. The rating of faithfulness improved for the projection pattern with a smaller star size. For the preference evaluation, the projection pattern with low luminance significantly lowered the preference rating. The results of the experiment indicate that the preferable star reproduction was different between male and female observers, whereas the faithful star reproduction was not significantly different in the evaluations between male and female observers. The male observers sought a faithful star reproduction as the preferred reproduction. In contrast, the female observers did not feel the faithful star reproduction preferable, and evaluated the more brilliant star reproduction as the preferred reproduction. These results were not dependent on the experience in astronomical observations.