About the Planetarium
The
Planetarium offers many advantages over star gazing outdoors.
Outdoor observers must contend with the cold, cloud cover, unwanted
light from streetlights, the moon and the city glow in general. In
the air conditioned dome the audience can view all parts of the
artificial sky with comparative ease.
Over 8,000 people visit the Planetarium yearly to learn more about the night sky.
The Zeiss star projector reminds many visiting children of C3PO from the Star Wars movies but this projector is really the heart of the Planetarium.
The Planetarium projector can be utilised to show concepts such as:
- Common easily distinguished southern hemisphere constellations
- Common and useful stars and planets
- Finding directions by the stars
- Positions of the stars at different times of the year
- The Milky Way and the centre of our galaxy
- Effect of city glow on observations
- Planets and the ecliptic