Pottsville Area lights up planetarium with LEDs

With a touch of a button, a science teacher at Pottsville Area High School can turn night to dawn, then dawn to day and day to twilight. “We just had a new LED lighting upgrade, so the lighting is much more realistic,” Matthew R. Saporito, the new instructor assigned by the high school’s planetarium, which recently got a $16,678 lighting upgrade, said. “We have a lot more control over the system. And we can, pretty much, program any kind of simulation we can think of.” With the start of the 2014-15 school year, Saporito has stepped behind the controls of the planetarium, taking the place of high school science teacher Thomas J. Guzick, who retired in June. Saporito said he hopes to work with the school district to develop more programs for students and, possibly, a public demonstration.