Planetarium of Athens (Eugenidis Foundation)
Planetarium of Athens (Eugenidis Foundation)
To go directly to the Planetarium's entrance of the Foundation, use the rear entrance. There at the lobby, visitors first draw their eyes upon to a massive brass telescope from the former century that is simply breathtaking. To your left, is the original planetarium projector, placed as an exhibit in the exact same spot that it occupied throughout its operation from 1966 to 1999 - donated by Nikolaos Vernikos-Eugenides. That very first projector, a Mark IV made by the Carl Zeiss Company, was 6 meters high, weighed 2.5 tons and consisted of 29,000 parts. Its 2 round ends, as well as its midsection, were covered by 150 projection systems that enabled it to project onto the hemispherical dome, among other things, 8,900 stars with a magnitude of up to 6.5, the movement of the Sun, the Moon and the 5 brightest planets, the image of the visible sky, as it appears from every point on Earth, and the seasonal changes.
The upper level of the complex was renovated in 1999, in order to make space for an interactive exhibition. 2 new wings were implemented in September 2003. One of them hosts the New Digital Planetarium and the other, in a section of the building symmetrical to the Planetarium, houses a unique exhibition hall, the "Marianthi Simou" Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition Hall. The Athens Digital Planetarium operates on a large scale cinema projection system, which displays images over an area that is ten times bigger than a regular cinema room. The first periodic exhibition, entitled "Science of Sports", was held there in November 2003, staged by the General Secretariat for the Olympic Games in cooperation with the Eugenides Foundation in light of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Furthermore, the Eugenides Foundation provides Conference and Exhibition facilities as well as digital collections for those of you who are interested.
