The Barlow Planetarium at the UW-Oshkosh Fox Cities Campus, the first major planetarium in the state of Wisconsin, opened to the public on March 20, 1998. The 48-foot diameter projection dome with seating for 98 (in addition to 4 wheelchair accessible spaces) is powered by an Evans and Sutherland Digistar II®, cutting-edge video projection and automation technology.

The Barlow, at the time of its opening, was considered among the most state-of-the-art planetariums in the United States. Today, the Barlow is the second largest and second most attended planetarium in Wisconsin. The Barlow serves approximately 35,000 visitors annually from Northeast Wisconsin including the communities of seven UW System facilities: UW-Oshkosh, UW-Oshkosh Fox Cities Campus, UW-Oshkosh Fond du Lac Campus, UW-Green Bay, UW-Green Bay Manitowoc Campus, UW-Green Bay Marinette Campus and UW-Green Bay Sheboygan Campus.  Recently the Barlow has been getting visitors from UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Stevens Point.

The Barlow ranks with the busiest university stand-alone planetariums in the Midwest.  In the United States, only the planetariums of large flagship universities surpass Barlow’s attendance and revenue.