DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - The idea of traveling to space is something many kids dream of. The Macon County Conservation District has purchased a new StarLab which brings space closer to home. The inflatable dome is about 10 feet tall, and can fit thirty people inside at once. It is a mobile planetarium that can deflate into a duffel bag. 

'This is a really good tool to get people excited about space," said Alysia Callison, Director of Program Services at the Macon County Conservation District. "Schools are limited to the hours school is in session, so if we can get kids into a star lab during the school day, that allows them to get excited about what they could see in their own backyard that night." 

Inside the StarLab, employees like Callison lead groups on a tour of many elements of space. They can show the constellations, views from previous eclipses, the moon of Jupiter, or many other things. It's a way to help people connect what they've learned about space in textbooks or pictures to real life. 

"Learning about space is very abstract and very contextual," Callison said. "So just getting in there and diving into it and saying let's look at the Big Dipper, but let's see it in relation to the rest of the stars and the rest of the sky around it."

The StarLab isn't just for classrooms. Anyone can book a time for the Star Lab to come to them, as long as their space is big enough. Requirements include an indoor space with at least 13-foot tall ceilings, and a 25 square foot by 25 square feet area of unobstructed floor space. 

For more details on the StarLab, check out the Macon County Conservation District website.

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