The Brussels Planetarium (; ) of the
Royal Observatory of Belgium
The Royal Observatory of Belgium (; ; ) has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels since 1890. It is part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO).
The Royal Observatory was first established in S ...
is a
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 ...
located on the
Heysel/Heizel Plateau in
Laeken
(French language, French, ) or (Dutch language, Dutch, ) is a residential suburb in the north-western part of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. It belongs to the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, municipality of the ...
(northern part of the
City of Brussels
The City of Brussels is the largest List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, municipality and historical City centre, centre of the Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the ...
). It was established during the
Brussels International Exposition of 1935
The Brussels International Exposition of 1935 (; ) was a world's fair held between 27 April and 6 November 1935 on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Belgium.
History
The 1935 World's Fair was the tenth world's fair hosted by Belgium, an ...
as the Alberteum and is now part of the institutions of the
Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
The Federal Public Planning Service Science Policy (; ; ) or Belgian Science Policy Office, Federal Science Policy, known by the acronym BELSPO, is the federal government body responsible for research policy in Belgium. It designs and implements ...
(BELSPO).
Description
The Brussels Planetarium is one of the most important planetariums in Europe and a leading attraction in Belgium. The planetarium has an international scientific reputation, and is one of the largest in Europe, with its dome of in diameter, on which the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
, the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
, the
planets
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the te ...
, the
Milky Way
The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...
and more than 8,500
star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
s can be projected.
The Zeiss UPP 23/5 projector of the planetarium was made up of 119 projectors and was built by the
Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss (; 11 September 1816 – 3 December 1888) was a German scientific instrument maker, optician and businessman. In 1846 he founded his workshop, which is still in business as Zeiss (company), Zeiss. Zeiss gathered a group of gifted p ...
company of
Jena
Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
. In April 2021, the planetarium opened its newly renovated dome, equipped with eight state-of-the-art Barco projectors. The projectors were installed by RSA Cosmos, who also provided the latest version of its powerful astronomical software, SkyExplorer 2021.
See also
*
Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy
The Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) (, ) is a Belgian federal scientific research institute. Created in 1964, its main tasks are research and public service in space aeronomy, which is the physics and chemistry of the atmos ...
*
Royal Meteorological Institute
The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (French: ''Institut Royal Météorologique de Belgique'' or IRM; Dutch: ''Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut van België'' or KMI) is a Belgian federal institute engaged in scientific research in the ...
*
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed.
Th ...
*
Astrarium
An astrarium, also called a planetarium, is a medieval astronomical clock made in the 14th century by Italian engineer and astronomer Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio. The Astrarium was modeled after the Solar System and, in addition to counting tim ...
*
Astrolabe
An astrolabe (; ; ) is an astronomy, astronomical list of astronomical instruments, instrument dating to ancient times. It serves as a star chart and Model#Physical model, physical model of the visible celestial sphere, half-dome of the sky. It ...
*
Astronomical clock
An astronomical clock, horologium, or orloj is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.
Definition ...
*
Fulldome video
Fulldome refers to immersive dome-based video display environments. The dome, horizontal or tilted, is filled with real-time (interactive) or pre-rendered (linear) computer animations, live capture images, or composited environments.
Although t ...
*
Star atlas
Celestial cartography, uranography,
astrography or star cartography is the aspect of astronomy and branch of cartography concerned with mapping stars, galaxies, and other astronomical objects on the celestial sphere. Measuring the position ...
References
External links
*
Planetarium Brussels
{{DEFAULTSORT:Planetarium
Planetaria in Belgium
City of Brussels
Buildings and structures in Brussels