TJC Planetarium Courtyard

The expansion of the Tyler Junior College planetarium is a major expansion of the existing campus development. The site development includes creating several different plazas for student and visitor use when visiting the planetarium.

The first courtyard includes an in-scale solar system showing each of the planets and how they relate to the sun and the size of the Earth.

The second plaza area is the analema plaza. Here, visitors will view an analema that will indicate the position of the sun at a certain time of the day, as well as acting as a sundial.

The third plaza is the moon phase plaza. The different phases of the moon are displayed using the planetarium as the location of the sun in relation to the moon phases embedded in the concrete walkways. The second and third plazas will be used to have star gazing parties sponsored by the planetarium.

The landscape site development is unique in the fact that it is a Texas native plant landscape development. Almost all of the plants used in the site developments are native landscape plants of East Texas.