The American Museum of the Moving Image, which bills itself as the first museum in the United States devoted to chronicling the history of producing, promoting and exhibiting movies, television and video art, opens tomorrow in Astoria, Queens.

The 50,000-square-foot museum, adjacent to the landmark 16-acre Kaufman Astoria Studios complex at 35th Avenue and 36th Street, features technologically sophisticated exhibits that allow visitors to step into the costumes of movie and television stars, discover how special effects are done and generate movie sound effects.

There are playful bows to television and movie history and iconography. One is a 1960-vintage ''TV Lounge'' created by Jim Isserman, an artist, where one can sink into a plastic-covered cowhide sofa and watch television. Another is a mock-Egyptian movie palace festooned with hundreds of images relating to early movie history that was designed by the artists Red Grooms and Lysiane Luong.

The 60,000 objects in the museum's collection also include early movie cameras and television sets, a set from Paul Newman's 1987 production of ''The Glass Menagerie,'' a cavalcade of ''Star Wars'' teacups, Shirley Temple dolls, ''Gone With the Wind'' cookbooks and other delightfully familiar and kitschy promotional items. #700 Programs a Year Two theaters at the museum are to present 700 film and video programs a year. The inaugural four-week series in the 195-seat Riklis Theater will be ''Glorious Technicolor,'' a 23-movie homage to the heyday of Technicolor films of the 1940's and 50's. Tomorrow's schedule is ''Singin' in the Rain'' at 12:30 P.M., ''Black Narcissus'' at 3 P.M. and ''Jet Pilot'' at 7:30 P.M. Sunday's schedule is ''The Wizard of Oz'' at 12:30 P.M. and ''Moon Over Miami'' at 3 P.M. Movie tickets are $1 with museum admission.

The first series at the adjacent 60-seat Warner Communications Screening Room is ''Media and the Vietnam War,'' a compendium of 46 television broadcasts, films and videotapes about the war. Programs will be continuous during museum hours and are free with museum admission.

Museum hours are 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Saturday, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Sunday, 1 to 5 P.M. Wednesday and Thursday and 1 to 8 P.M. Friday. Admission is $4; $2 for children and the elderly. The museum is two blocks from the Steinway Street subway station on the R and G trains. The Q-101 bus, which runs down Steinway Street, can be taken from 59th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan. For those traveling by car, a parking lot on 35th Avenue, between 37th and 38th Streets, charges $5 a day. Information: (718) 784-0077.

photo of Tallulah Bankhead