Celebrate the Centennial of Planetariums with a Visit to the New Shanghai Astronomy Museum

The history of planetariums can be traced back to ancient civilizations. In Greece, Archimedes created mechanical devices to illustrate celestial movement. In 1229, Emperor Frederick II used a tent with holes to represent stars, and rotated the tent to mimic the movement of stars across the night sky. But the planetariums we are familiar with visiting did not arrive on the scene until the last 100 years. The first modern planetarium was at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The Zeiss Planetarium began projecting stars in 1925. The Adler Planetarium, which opened in 1930, was the first modern planetarium in the Western Hemisphere.

Digital projection first came to planetariums in 1983. As with everything else, planetariums continue to become more high-tech as new innovations become part of museum technology. Today’s state-of-the-art planetarium is represented by China’s new Shanghai Astronomy Museum. It boasts the largest planetarium in the world, encompassing 9.6 acres and serving a city of 29 million people. It has two planetarium domes and hundreds of individual exhibits housed in award-winning architecture. It features a children’s observing camp and two large professional telescopes.

As their main astronomy exhibition consultant for three years, our speaker, Jim Switzer, PhD, will share his visit to the planetarium. Join Jim, who is also an NAA member, as he shares his unique insider’s “tour” of this new mothership of planetariums during our December General Meeting.