The Bangkok Planetarium (, ') is the oldest

planetarium A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and Southeast Asia. It is located on Sukhumvit Road in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

as part of the

Science Centre for Education The Science Center for Education (, ') is a science museum in Khlong Toei District, Bangkok, Thailand. It is located next to the Eastern Bus Terminal (Ekkamai) on Sukhumvit Road, and is a science exhibition center. It includes an aquarium, a compu ...

, which is operated by the Department of Non-Formal Education of the Ministry of Education.The complex was built to educate the youth and general public about science and astronomy. Construction of the planetarium began in 1962 with a budget of twelve million baht and it opened on 18 August 1964. The planetarium dome is 20.60 metres in diameter and 13 metres high, and holds 450 seats. The planetarium uses a Mark IV

Zeiss projector A Zeiss projector is one of a line of planetarium projectors manufactured by the Carl Zeiss AG, Carl Zeiss Company. Main models include Copernican (1924), Model I (1925), Model II (1926), Model III (1957), Model IV (1957), Model V (1965), M ...

, which was the first installation of a large

planetarium projector A planetarium projector, also known as a star projector, is a device used to project images of celestial objects onto the dome in a planetarium. Modern planetarium projectors were first designed and built by the Carl Zeiss AG, Carl Zeiss Jena co ...

in Southeast Asia. Apart from the theatre itself, the building also features permanent exhibitions on astronomy, aimed at young audiences. The planetarium underwent extensive renovations in 2015, including the installation of two new Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors alongside the old Mark IV, which helped reignite interest in the previously ailing museum.

References

External links

* {{coord, 13, 43, 10, N, 100, 34, 58, E, display=title, region:TH_type:landmark Planetaria Museums in Bangkok Science museums in Thailand Astronomy in Thailand