Astronomical Society of South Australia

Adelaide Planetarium

Adelaide's planetarium is situated on the first floor of Building P of the University of South Australia at the Mawson Lakes Campus. The planetarium houses a Zeiss Jena projector standing in the centre of a dome-shaped room.

An artificial night sky is projected on to the interior surface of the 8 metre dome, which acts as a giant screen to display images of the stars, Sun, Moon and planets. The projector presents the relative positions and brightness of about 5,000 stars visible from the southern hemisphere.

The planetarium offers many advantages over star gazing outdoors. Outdoors observers may have to contend with the cold, cloud cover, unwanted light pollution from city lights or the Moon. In the air-conditioned dome which seats 45 people in specially designed chairs, the audience can view all parts of the changing sky with ease and in comfort.

The planetarium is one of the very few in the world still operated manually. This enables it to be used flexibly for teaching and for presentations of this type.

Note, the planetarium is open on the first Saturday of each month at 2:45pm sharp, and at other times by appointment only. Bookings (other than courses) and general enquiries can be made by phone to the Planetarium on 8302 3138 between 9am and 4:45pm Monday to Friday, or by sending e-mail to adelaide.planetarium@unisa.edu.au.