When was the first planetarium built

The first planetarium projectors made in Asia! This planetarium opened in New Zealand on 22 October to the delight of its audiences.

The image shows a pre-opening demonstration of the planetarium on 6 October This training was necessary to get the astronauts, many of whom did not have extensive knowledge of constellations or astronomy, able to find target stars for their guidance computers. It was the first planetarium in Africa.

To expedite the opening of the planetarium, it was decided to purchase the ZEISS Mark III projector that was originally operated at Planetarium Hamburg, and have it completely factory refurbished and modernized. Wits Planetarium celebrated its golden birthday in and continues to serve the Johannesburg community and beyond.

In , the first commercially available special effects projectors were made available to planetarians by Sky-Skan. Effects like moving clouds, rotating black holes and more no longer had to be created from whatever one could find lying around the dome and at home. These analog projectors were often used along side the homemade projectors, but they gave a planetarium the opportunity to achieve the next level of effects. Images of a rotating effect projector and multiple effects projectors in the spring line of a planetarium:.

IPS has certainly grown in the last 50 years! It is truly our passion and desire to continue to grow and bring together all planetarians worldwide. Shows sold out constantly and soon the phenomenon was spreading to planetaria all over and bringing new visitors into the dome. It was installed at the Science Museum of Virginia in In the same year, Sky-Skan released the first digital multimedia control system for planetariums.

Within the next few years many planetariums started to add one or both of these technological advancements to their domes. It began to look complicated. Then a simple and elegant solution suggested itself. Why not make a fixed dome and use it as a projection screen on which to throw multiple images of sky objects? It took years to iron out the details and all work halted during the War.

But the first planetarium, in the modern sense of the word, opened in in Munich. In the first Zeiss planetarium was opened in North America in Chicago. Yet the high cost of the Zeiss made these installations a rarity. The small planetarium market was successfully opened up by an American newspaperman: Armand Spitz He had entered that liminal space, where he could touch the stars from his living room.

It must have felt — if only just for a moment — that time had stopped. Another discovery comes in the attic. So impressed was William I, Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands, when he climbed into this same pitched loft years ago, he decided to buy it outright.

Credit: Mike Maceacheran. Cyclists pedalled along cobbled canal ways and in front of the medieval Martinus Church a newly installed basin fountain sat in darkness. Built in honour of another great Dutch astronomer, it is dedicated to Jan Hendrik Oort, born in Franeker in , whose assumption that the Milky Way moves around our solar system — and not the sun — was proved correct.

Only then did I realise that for such a small town, Franeker has made the universe so much larger, so much brighter, for everyone. Eisinga died aged 84, buried in nearby Dronrijp, 7km away, where he first grew up. Today a bronze statue, dedicated to this extraordinary wool comber, looks enduringly to the skies in the shadow of the house in which he was born. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. Share using Email. By Mike MacEacheran 21st March Dutch amateur astronomer Eise Eisinga might have left school at 12 years old, but he built an inch-perfect model of the solar system in his living room.

Every planet, star, sun and moon moves exactly as they do in reality.