Yorkshire Planetarium
Encyclopedia
The Yorkshire Planetarium was a planetarium
in the grounds of Harewood House
, near Leeds
, West Yorkshire
, England
, from May 2007 until October 2008. The Yorkshire Planetarium organisation has announced that it is laying plans for a permanent base in Bradford
and until that is developed it will be touring various locations during International Year of Astronomy
2009.
The planetarium at Harewood consisted of three linked geodesic
domes of which one was dedicated to the planetarium itself while the others were used as the main entrance with an 8m climbing frame and a theatre to provide further information about space.
dome. There were guided tours of the sky by a live presenter in the dark dome. Star
s and planet
s were projected onto the inside of the dome by a Carl Zeiss Skymaster star projector
. This enabled visitors to gaze into the sky at the stars without the hindrance of light pollution
and cloud cover
while they lay on comfortable mats or deck chairs.
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
in the grounds of Harewood House
Harewood House
Harewood House is a country house located in Harewood , near Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is a member of Treasure Houses of England, a marketing consortium for nine of the foremost stately homes in England...
, near Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, from May 2007 until October 2008. The Yorkshire Planetarium organisation has announced that it is laying plans for a permanent base in Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
and until that is developed it will be touring various locations during International Year of Astronomy
International Year of Astronomy
The International Year of Astronomy was a year-long celebration of astronomy that took place in 2009 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei and the publication of Johannes Kepler's Astronomia nova in the 17th century...
2009.
The planetarium at Harewood consisted of three linked geodesic
Geodesic
In mathematics, a geodesic is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line" to "curved spaces". In the presence of a Riemannian metric, geodesics are defined to be the shortest path between points in the space...
domes of which one was dedicated to the planetarium itself while the others were used as the main entrance with an 8m climbing frame and a theatre to provide further information about space.
The Planetarium
The main attraction was the planetariumPlanetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
dome. There were guided tours of the sky by a live presenter in the dark dome. Star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s and planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s were projected onto the inside of the dome by a Carl Zeiss Skymaster star projector
Zeiss projector
A Zeiss projector is one of a line of planetarium projectors manufactured by the Carl Zeiss Company.The first modern planetarium projectors were designed and built in 1924 by the Zeiss Works of Jena, Germany in 1924. Zeiss projectors are designed to sit in the middle of a dark, dome-covered room...
. This enabled visitors to gaze into the sky at the stars without the hindrance of light pollution
Light pollution
Light pollution, also known as photopollution or luminous pollution, is excessive or obtrusive artificial light.The International Dark-Sky Association defines light pollution as:...
and cloud cover
Cloud cover
Cloud cover refers to the fraction of the sky obscured by clouds when observed from a particular location...
while they lay on comfortable mats or deck chairs.