The Birla Planetarium (officially M. P. Birla Planetarium) in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, is a single-storeyed circular structure designed in the typical Indian style, whose architecture is loosely styled on the

Buddhist Stupa A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as ''śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. In Buddhism, circumamb ...

Sanchi Sanchi is a Buddhist complex, famous for its Great Stupa, on a hilltop at Sanchi Town in Raisen District of the State of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located, about 23 kilometres from Raisen town, district headquarter and north-east of Bh ...

. Situated at

Chowringhee Road Chowringhee Road (also spelt ''Chourangi Road''), located in the Chowringhee neighbourhood of Kolkata, is the arterial road running from the eastern fringes of Esplanade southwards up to the crossing with Lower Circular Road (AJC Bose Roa ...

adjacent to the

Victoria Memorial The Victoria Memorial is a large marble building on the Maidan in Central Kolkata, built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, Empress of India from 1876 to 1901. The largest monument to a monarch anywhere ...

, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Maidan in Central Kolkata, it is the largest planetarium in Asia and the second largest planetarium in the world. There are two other Birla Planetariums in India: B.M. Birla Planetarium in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and the

Birla Planetarium Birla may refer to: * Birla family * Members of the Birla family: ** Aditya Vikram Birla ** Ananya Birla ** Basant Kumar Birla ** G. D. Birla ** K. K. Birla ** C. K. Birla ** Kumar Mangalam Birla See also * Burla (disambiguation) Burla may refer ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

. Popularly known as ''taramandal'', the planetarium was inaugurated on 2 July 1963 by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. It has an electronics laboratory for design and fabrication of science equipment. It has an astronomy gallery that maintains a huge collection of fine paintings and celestial models of renowned astronomers. The Planetarium also has an astronomical observatory equipped with a Celestron C-14 Telescope with accessories such as ST6 CCD camera and solar filter. It offers to the public and students more than 100 astronomical projects dealing with various facts of astronomy, astro-physics, Space Science as well as myths concerning stars and planets. It has a capacity of 6800. Daily programs are conducted in English, Bengali and Hindi from 12:00 to 19:00 hrs. The show timing is as follows: Mon to Sat - 12.30 PM HINDI, 1.30 PM ENGLISH, 2.30 PM HINDI, 3.30 PM BENGALI, 4.30 PM HINDI, 5.30 PM BENGALI, 6.30 PM ENGLISH and two extra shows on Sunday and Holiday is 10.30 AM HINDI, 11.30 AM BENGALI (updated on 15.08.2017) Programs are occasionally conducted in Odiya, Tamil and Gujarati, as well. Extra shows are arranged on holidays. The Planetarium was constructed by ML Dalmiya & Co. which is owned by

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the world ...

former President late

Jagmohan Dalmiya Jagmohan Dalmiya (30 May 1940 – 20 September 2015) was an Indian cricket administrator and businessman from the city of Kolkata. He was the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India as well as the Cricket Association of Bengal. He ...

. It reopened to public on 18 July 2017, after closing down for 28 months of renovations work. The new planetarium system for the Birla Planetarium is a so-called ZEISS Hybrid Planetarium, with the STARMASTER, an optical-mechanical planetarium projector (also called “Starball”) working in synch with a dome video display system. The Starball presents the most realistic starfield in the dome with superimposed images of constellation outlines, space objects like nebula and galaxies, planets and moons by the VELVET digital video system, called fulldome projection. The technical upgrade was delivered and installed by the German company

Carl Zeiss AG Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the f ...

References

External links

*
Official Website
{{Wikivoyage-inline, Kolkata/Maidan Planetaria in India Tourist attractions in Kolkata Buildings and structures in Kolkata Education in Kolkata