So we headed down to Armagh, stopping for a delicious meal at Uluru on the way. Opening times for the Planetarium are 10am - 5pm with shows being displayed every hour. Tickets must be prebooked in advance too, so be sure to ring up beforehand.
'Over seven months in the Arctic Circle, former Armagh Planetarium Director Terence Murtagh captured timelapse images of the Aurora Borealis with high resolution digital SLR cameras outfitted with fisheye lenses. The results are spectacular. For the first time the aurora has been captured as it was meant to be experienced, as a display that covers the entire sky. This immersive show shares the science behind the aurora and tells the story of our quest to find and photograph the aurora for wraparound display in fulldome theaters.'
I'm not going to lie, as an aurora enthusiast myself I was very excited to see this show (I even went to Norway early last year in search of the Northern Lights), and it didn't disappoint. Before the show there was a short introduction and a little pre-show of a collage of entries to the children's Christmas card competition that was held before Christmas. This was very well done and a nice festive touch to the outing. After this we reclined our seats and prepared for the show.
The theatre that the shows are viewed in is extremely impressive in itself; its hemispherical screens mean that once you recline your seat and the lights go down, all you can see is the night sky projected all around you. The theatre uses the Digistar 3 system currently, and from now until the 19th January the Planetarium will be closed in order to upgrade this system to Digistar 5. Although an inconvenience for now, we look forward to see how this upgraded system makes viewing the shows even better and more realistic than they already are!
Overall Armagh Planetarium is a fun and educational day out especially if you have children, and with recent renovations and new shows being shown, even if you've been before, it'll be worth a send visit!
Who wrote this...?
I'm 20 years old, studying Journalism with Photo-Imaging at the University of Ulster Coleraine Campus. I have an undying love for Belfast and all that it has to offer, an undying love for sleeping, Tegan and Sara, trashy tv shows, foreign snack-foods and being irresponsible with money. I also quite like reading, hip-hop, dubstep, anything acoustic and Food Network TV.