Hey planetarium friends!

I'm interrupting your daily dose of stars, pixels, and productivity for a quick announcement: the Fulldome Database (FDDB) has been acquired by Skypoint—an Italian company specializing in planetariums and the sales of very cool astronomy equipment—and it’s scaling up!

I initiated the FDDB project from scratch more than a decade ago and built what is now the largest online community for people passionate about fulldome. Looking back, I’m amazed at the growing number of planetarians, academics, artists, organizations, students, and dome enthusiasts alike who’ve been signing up year after year. After 13 years of passionate work, there are more than 12,000 of us! That’s mind-blowing when you consider the size of the planetarium niche.

Directing and running FDDB has been fun and extremely enriching—both professionally and personally. But it’s been a one-man army. Given the growth of FDDB and the exciting development opportunities ahead, I recently decided to look for a third party that could better facilitate this growth and push it even further.

I’m very pleased to have found such interest from an organization that shares my Italian roots and is also passionate about planetariums.

What does this mean moving forward?

While the ownership of the project has been transferred to Skypoint, I’ll still be involved as FDDB Editor and will help Skypoint take FDDB into the future. Over the years, I’ve built great relationships with planetarians, producers, and distributors from around the world—an extremely valuable asset that touches me profoundly—and I will keep honoring that.

There will be no immediate changes as a result of the new ownership; FDDB services will carry on as usual. In the coming months, Skypoint will introduce some exciting new features to FDDB, so stay tuned for their announcements.

Thank you!

It’s been a dream job. I’m especially grateful to some of my greatest supporters, people who I’m fortunate enough to call friends: Dan Neafus, Glenn Smith, Paul Mowbray, Max Crown, Lionel Ruiz, Daniel Audeon, Shawn Laatsch, Thomas Kraupe, Micky Remann, Tim Florian Horn, Sascha Kriegel, Andrey Lobanov, Mike Bruno, Carloalberto Fornea, and Gioacchino Gasparella.

And of course, I’ve got you to thank. Thanks for finding what I do here interesting and helpful enough to keep coming back. Thank you for all your input and support over the years. I’m truly humbled that you’ve trusted the work I’ve done here.

My passion for the fulldome community hasn’t dimmed—if anything, it’s stronger than ever. I’m excited to see where we’ll go next. I’ve always believed that the more people become involved with fulldome, the bigger the ideas, the better the innovations, and the more amazing the immersive storytelling experience will become. I’m sure this acquisition will help facilitate this process and keep the fulldome awesomeness emerging.

FDDB rocks. And will keep rocking.

With love,
Dario Tiveron
FDDB Founder