|  The
History
Year 2004 marks twenty years from
the closing of the historical Planetarium of Rome,
which was located in the Minerva’s hall, within the
Diocletian’s baths.
That Planetarium was - together with the one in Milan - the
biggest all over Italy. It also was a very well known facility,
appreciated by the population of the town and often visited
by tourists.
Being opened in 1928, the Planetarium of Rome was also one
of the first-ever Planetariums in the world. When it was closed
to the public, Rome lost one of its few scientific culture
resources, a lack that has been constantly emphasized by the
mass media, by the citizens and by the huge crowd of the town’s
amateur astronomers.
But now, with the opening of a new Planetarium
in the E.U.R.’s district, the city of Rome Cultural
Policies Councillorship finally returns to its citizens a
brand new institution, meant to be of extreme value for the
popularization and the didactic of astronomy.
The Planetarium is also part of a wider facility, including
both a Documentation Centre and an Astronomical
Museum.
The new Planetarium is hosted inside the Museum of
Roman Civilization and it ideally represents the
final destination of a journey that, starting from the vestiges
of the ancient past, will bring the visitors to the wonders
of a faraway future throughout both humanistic and scientific
cultures.
The realization of the new Planetarium has been a quite difficult
operation, involving not only the City Council of Rome but
also the Regional Government of Lazio and the State University
La Sapienza, with funding coming from various institutions
and resources.
This project has also been possible thanks to the collaboration
and cooperation of both the direction and of all the staff
of the Museum of Roman civilization, although the Planetarium
itself is under the direction of the Scientific Museums of
Rome’s network system.
Given that the Planetarium was going to be located in a pre-existent
museum, the whole project was developed trying to minimize
an invasive presence, by deeply considering a possible reversibility
of the operation in order to grant the integrity of the holder,
on the one hand, and the possibility of using the location
for different purposes on the other.
The
Planetarium
The Planetarium takes up 300 sqm and is covered by a dome
manufactured by the French firm Denis.
The star projector is a SN 95 II by RSA Cosmos
(the old Zeiss Model II is now in exposition).
The dome has a diameter of 14 meters and
is able to seat more than 100 people in comfortable ergonomic
armchairs, arranged in concentric rows.
Apart from the star projector, the dome is also equipped with
a digital system Sky Explorer supported by
a single digital channel In Space System, that allows projecting
images, videos and animations in three different directions
of the dome with three NEC digital video-projectors.
Moreover, there are twelve slide-projectors used for panoramas
and all-sky projections and an 8 channels audio system.
This extremely modern equipment-set is expected to offer both
automated and live shows.
The shows will be aimed to both pupils form school groups
but also to a more general public, with an estimated annual
attendance of around 100.000 visitors.
The
astronomical museum
The museum’s exposition covers an area of about 400
sqm, but it is quite different from any traditional museum
or science centre. This museum wishes to be a sort of “astronomical
theatre” where the visitor’s curiosity and want
of discovery will be enhanced by the help of images, animations
and of a huge collection of models and dioramas. The visiting
tour starts from the Earth then goes on with a “landing”
on the Moon, followed by a journey to the Solar System planets
and the interstellar space. The virtual journey is supposed
to stimulate the visitors’ interest in crucial themes
such as Time, Space and the Origin of the Chemical Elements,
which will all be developed throughout the visit. The visitor
will then be cast back to Earth through a virtual “black
hole”.
Among the installations and facilities in the Museum area
there are:
two big dioramas, representing the lunar surface and the surface
of Jupiter’s moon Europa
a section of a star, in which visitors will be invited to
enter to see the inner structure of a star
the in scale models of the Solar System Planets and of the
Moon
10 multimedia workstations enabling to expand onto the contents
of the exposition with images, videos and didactical games
35 show cases reproducing models of satellites, space probes
and the like
15 monitors
a bookshop
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