About 20 attendees, a mix of faculty and students, sat in a planetarium that reflected its half-century-old age. Gillis Lowry, an astronomy graduate student, cranked the squeaky knob of the control panel to change the years of the projector while observers’ seats creaked when they leaned back in their chairs during Monday’s planetarium show in Thornton Hall.  Soon, the San Francisco State University community can attend shows in a more modern venue. Starting Feb. 26, 2026, Charles F. Hagar Planetarium will undergo renovations to update the space from its 1973 technology to a state-of-the-art design. The renovation will take several months, with public programming beginning in 2027. In 2018, Hagar Planetarium and observatory director Adrienne Cool began efforts to renovate the planetarium and raise $1.5 million to provide it with new equipment. At the end of 2023, the Heising-Simons Foundation informed Cool that her proposal for funding had been accepted, with the foundation committ...