12 Dec 2017
World's largest planetarium opens in St Petersburg
BY Tom Anstey
A 150-year-old gas storage facility on St Petersburg’s Obvodny Canal has been transformed into a record-breaking planetarium.
Called Planetarium No1, the attraction takes the crown as the world’s largest planetarium, with its 37m (121ft) dome outstripping the former record holder in Nagoya, Japan.
Filling a 4,000sq m (43,000sq ft) space, the dome features 40 8K projectors, with the dome’s screen offering a resolution of 100 million pixels.
The planetarium, capable of hosting up to 500 people at a time, opened its doors to visitors with a film telling the building’s history, followed by one on the Earth’s birth and then on space exploration.
In addition to the dome, Planetarium No1 features an exhibition of space, guiding visitors on a journey through the cosmos. Called Starry Hall, the exhibition has two interactive tables showing an accurate map of the stars which, if touched, appear in 3D as individual constellations.
Elsewhere, the planetarium’s Lumiere Hall is an immersive multimedia room filled with screens on every surface for unique astronomy displays and classic film presentations.
Virtual reality will play a part in the planetarium from 2018, with an interactive VR room dedicated to space exploration.
The planetarium also includes a café, education spaces for free lectures on astronomy and an observatory.
The venue will host educational and cultural events, festivals of audiovisual art, symphony concerts and opera performances.
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