School Children’s visit to the Planetarium

Children huddle into their seats in a dark room. Some of them use their cell phone backlights to look for their seat numbers. The teacher in charge tells the children not to disturb the others and to settle down into their seats as fast as possible. Suddenly the dome of the auditorium lights up with stars and a moving night sky. Each child’s face lights up with glee as the light of a spectacular stellar night sky falls on their soft faces. A deep voice stills the children and the story of the Planetarium is narrated by Boron Halder, the voice that once used conduct the Binaca sangeet mala, and the Bournvita quiz program.

This spectacular new show held on all week days for school batches and on weekends for the general public from 10 to 2 and 4 to 7p.m in the evening is a popular venue for tourists and school trips alike. The show explores the fascinating life history of the stars, from the smallest red dwarf to the largest blue giant. Using state-of-the art digital simulation, it charts the life of a star from birth to death and beyond, and looks at the impact that this has on the universe around us. A planetarium can fly you into the heart of the Sun, transport you to distant galaxies, show you the birth of a star or land you on Mars. It can also combine real images from a spacecraft and telescope with advanced CGI, all projected onto a fully immersive dome.

It is said that the first planetarium which was used for viewing an artificial sky was in a sort of tent with holes in it that was made by Arab craftsmen. In 1229 the emperor Friedrick II of Hohenstaufen the sky and the motions of the constellations could be viewed in daylight. The Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes built an impressive armillary sphere powered by water. It is said to have been so accurate that it could reproduce eclipses of the sun and moon. Andreas Busch built the first planetarium theatre in 1657. He constructed a large globe into which twelve people could climb. The stars were fixed on inside the globe, and the planets moved along a set of internal rings. Visitors could sit and gaze at the artificial stars and planets as if sitting under a perfectly clear night sky. By the year 1900 these devices were well known.

In the year 1903, Oskar von Miller, a German scholar planned the earliest planetarium as scale models of the sky- but with the variable positions of the planets and the huge lights that required large noisy motor to turn the device, it was too cumbersome till the thought struck to keep the dome fixed 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 1914-1918 War. Finally, the first planetarium, in the modern sense of the word, opened in 1924 in Munich. In 1930 the first Zeiss planetarium was opened in North America in Chicago.