Planetarium

[Anubis]

I went to the Scottish Power Planetarium in Glasgow Science Center yesterday. Very impressive, the projector cost 3/4 of a million pounds :shock:

It isn't like the London planetarium with a pre-recorded movie, one of the members of staff presents the whole thing with a laser pointer. My only gripe is that it was only 30 mins long. All the kids there where oohing and aaahhing when she switched it from Glasgow's light polluted view that most of them will have only seen to the full dark sky location... another bunch of astronomers in the making.

[blinky]

Sounds very interesting, I keep meaning to take my kids through to the science centre.

[brendant]

They give an evening lecture on the last Thursday of the month http://www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/winternightsky.aspx with invited speakers, also run various night classes, an excellent and undersold facility, it had been open six years before I discovered it.

Recently attended an evening class called "Winter Night Sky" which was excellent.

This is a really advanced planetarium as Anubis posted and is capable of some amazing capabilities, on the last night they projected what the night sky would look like as viewed from Alpha Centuari (hope I have that bit right) our nearest star, the result was nothing short of amazing and not at all what you would expect, with the exception of our sun appearing as an extra star in Cassiopeia the sky looks no different, certainly gives an idea of the vast distances involved in our universe. Professor John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland) also came along on the last night.

If in Glasgow well worth a trip - highly reccomended.

Brendan