The Armagh Planetarium is the only one in Northern Ireland and is an excellent way of learning about the night skies.
It’s not only about the sound and light shows though – there are also spacey exhibits and displays of all kinds.
County Armagh’s planetarium was built in 1965 and has a history of innovation in planetarium circles. It was one of the first to use video tape recorders in the 1970s, and in the 1980s it was the first to create a fully interactive planetarium show, Space Odyssey, designed so that audience members could choose what topics the show would cover next.
In 2006, the Armagh Planetarium underwent a major refurbishment and has a state of the art sound system and projector. The shows cover all the traditional topics about planets, galaxies and stars, and the staff are proud to be up to date with the latest astronomical discoveries.
In addition to the main show, the Armagh Planetarium has several exhibits and activities for visitors. There is a two feet long meteorite, estimated to be 4.6 billion years old, which visitors can touch, and scale models of both the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope, the Voyager probes and other astronomical objects. The Mars room has models of the Viking Robot, and the failed British Beagle 2 mission.
Staff at the Armagh Planetarium also regularly put on activities, including building – and launching – your own rocket, as well as lightsaber duels with staff. For those wanting to get a taste of weightlessness, there is also a gyroscope to strap into and take off.
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