“I enjoyed how intrigued/ curious the children were about what the planetarium was. Mark’s knowledge on the topic was clearly vast and he was able to answer all the questions my class asked him. The amount of information squeezed into the sessions was great too.”
“Starlight STEM always provide excellent service, above and beyond expectations. The planetarium is phenomenal, the best we have ever hired for our Year 9 Astronomy day, and Mark is a font of all knowledge when it comes to space science and astrophysics, often leaving students speechless with his answers to their questions. I would recommend him to any other high school who wishes to enthuse their students about space and astrophysics, you won’t regret it!”
“Dr Mark visited our year 5 class armed with his pop up planetarium and workshop activities.
The children have not stopped talking about it! The morning in the planetarium was amazing and a fantastic opportunity, children were asking questions left, right and centre – so were the staff! We set a project to complete after the visit and the standard of work was impressive, they were enthralled and filled with enthusiasm!
We loved the opportunities in the afternoon, I don’t think I’ve heard children that excited (ever!) when they got to launch their rockets.
Thank you so much for your visit and we look forward to your return next year!”
“The year 5 children at Thameside Primary found the planetarium dome an awe inspiring experience. Space is a fascinating area as we know so little about it, so to have an expert like Mark visit our school (with the planetarium dome) was brilliant, especially for those children who were asking tricky questions that we could not answer.
It sparked an interest in everyone around the whole school. Anyone who saw it became extremely inquisitive. One adult in the school asked “Why can’t the whole school have a turn?” Adults were even visiting it in their lunch time.
Everyone found it easy to access regardless of any mobility issues, it was a stress-free, enlightening and engaging learning experience.”
“Mark Gallaway visited the University of Surrey to deliver planetarium shows for 2 of our largest events with more that 500 people coming onto campus for Star Gazing live and Seeing the Unseen, an event to celebrate international dark matter day.
He gave back to back planetarium shows touring the night sky all evening. These were exciting dives into the Universe, with fascinating facts and amazing images. Inspiring and engaging for all ages.”
“Mark brought his planetarium to the Royal Holloway Science Festival in 2018 and came back after popular demand in 2019. His shows both years were absolutely brilliant and followed up by quite vivid discussions. He is up to date with all current research in astronomy and could discuss with our audience topics like the gravitational waves discovery and dark matter research. He is very passionate about his job and this is reflected throughout his entire service and conduct. We had a variety of audiences visiting the festival, families, young adults, teenagers, and they were all enchanted by the planetarium, forming large queues to be able to grab a ticket. To address this in the second year Mark was very helpful and flexible. He offered shorter timings for his shows and was happy to squeeze more performances in the day. Always professional and very well organised, an engaging communicator and a very knowledgeable presenter, he is certainly a must have in our festival and we are planning to invite him next year too!”