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ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre

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Coordinates: 48°15′34.0″N 11°40′13.2″E / 48.259444°N 11.670333°E / 48.259444; 11.670333
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ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre
Map
Established2013
LocationGarching bei München, Germany
Coordinates48°15′34.0″N 11°40′13.2″E / 48.259444°N 11.670333°E / 48.259444; 11.670333
TypePlanetarium, Exhibition Centre
OwnerEuropean Southern Observatory
Public transit accessU6 Garching-Forschungszentrum (Munich U-Bahn)
Ismaning (bus 230)
Sonnenstraße (bus 292), Neufahrn bei Freising (bus 690)
Websitewww.supernova.eso.org

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre is an astronomy centre located at the site of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Headquarters in Garching bei München, currently under construction. It is scheduled to open in late 2017 and offers free access to exhibitions, guided tours and planetarium shows that feature observations made by the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory.

Organisation

The building is a donation from the Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS) and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) which ESO accepted in December 2013.[1] It is operated and managed by the European Southern Observatory.[2] The coordinator is Tania Johnston.[3]

Science campus Garching

The ESO Supernova Planetarum & Visitor Centre is located at the Science Campus Garching. The campus is home to the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and the Technical University of Munich, in addition to more than 80 independent scientific institutions and international science companies and 6 000 staff members and 14 000 students. The area of work cover fundamental research as well as high-tech developments.[4]

The architecture

The visitor centre was designed by the architects Bernhardt + Partner,[5] which have already designed the Haus der Astronomie, a centre for astronomy education and outreach.[6] The design of the ESO Supernova resembles that of a close double-star system with one star transferring mass to its companion. This set-up will ultimately lead to the heavier component exploding as a supernova, briefly becoming as bright as the light of all the stars in the Milky Way combined.

Planetarium

The visitor centre hosts a 14-metre diameter, tilted planetarium dome, able to accommodate up to 110 visitors. A Zeiss VELVET fulldome system with five projectors is used to operate the digital planetarium.[7] The centre will broadcast popular planetarium shows,[8][9][10][11] but also produce original shows,[12][13] as well as a large fraction of the fulldome footage used within them. These resources are made freely available to the wider community. The full planetarium shows will also be provided with translations in up to 20 languages.

An artist's’ rendering of the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre on the ESO Headquarters campus in Garching, Germany
Birds eye view of ESO Headquarters. The Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre is visible in the bottom-right of the image, as captured in 2015
An artist's’ rendering of the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre on the ESO Headquarters campus in Garching, Germany

Exhibitions

The ESO Supernova contains 2200 m² of exhibition space which is used for both permanent and temporary exhibitions. The permanent exhibition, designed by design und mehr is called The Living Universe.[14] The 13 themes of the exhibition present concepts of general astronomy, life in the Universe, and on how celestial objects are studied using modern telescopes and technologies. Using hands-on exhibits, digital interactives, videos and audio installations visitors can investigate all scientific topics in modern astrophysics. On every single stations visitors can choose the level on how deep they want to delve into the topic. All informations are also explained in a special kids-level.[15] The exhibition also caters to teachers and educators by including educational concepts from school curricula, allowing teachers to use parts of the exhibition to support and enhance the way in which they cover the school curricula. The exhibition also includes a small modern 3D cinema that shows 3D and 2D movies in English and German.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Planetarium and Visitor Centre Donated to ESO". ESO.
  2. ^ "ESO education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD)". ESO.
  3. ^ "Big Telescopes, Big Questions". Tania Johnston's blog.
  4. ^ "Garching Forschungszentrum".
  5. ^ "Bernhardt + Partner". Bernhardt + Partner.
  6. ^ "Haus der Astronomie".
  7. ^ "Zeiss Planetariums Newsletter August 2015". Zeiss.
  8. ^ "Planetarium Shows". ESO Supernova.
  9. ^ "From Earth to the Universe". ESO Supernova.
  10. ^ "First Free Downloadable Planetarium Show". ESO.
  11. ^ "World Premiere of IMAX® 3D Film Hidden Universe". ESO.
  12. ^ "ESO's Europe to the Stars". ESO.
  13. ^ "Europe to the Stars Movie Available Now". ESO.
  14. ^ "design und mehr". DUM.
  15. ^ "ESO Supernova Exhibition". ESO.
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