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

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

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

Buddhist Stupa In Buddhism, a stupa (, ) is a domed hemispherical structure containing several types of sacred relics, including images, statues, metals, and ''śarīra''—the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns. It is used as a place of pilgrimage and medit ...

Sanchi Sanchi Stupa is a Buddhist art, Buddhist complex, famous for its Great Stupa, on a hilltop at Sanchi Town in Raisen District of the States and territories of India, State of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located, about 23 kilometers from Raisen ...

. 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 Ro ...

adjacent to the

Victoria Memorial The Victoria Memorial is a large marble monument in the Maidan in Central Kolkata (Calcutta), having its entrance on the Queen's Way. It was built between 1906 and 1921 by the British Raj. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, the ...

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

and the Maidan in Central Kolkata, it is the largest planetarium in Asia and the second largest

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 ...

in the world. There are two other Birla Planetariums in India: B.M. Birla Planetarium in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

and the Birla Planetarium in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

. 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 570. Daily programs are conducted in English, Bengali and Hindi. The show timings are as follows: 12:00 PM Hindi, 1:00 PM English, 2:00 PM Hindi, 3:00 PM Bengali, 4:00 PM Hindi, 5:00 PM Bengali, 6:00 PM English. 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 principal national governing body of the sport of cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at the Cricket Centre in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. BCCI is the wealthiest governing body ...

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. H ...

. 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 sync 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 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 foundation for today's ...

References

External links

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

See also

References

External links