Spinning in space - Tom turns from the porthole to move further into the
room.
If you think 3-D means cheap cardboard glasses with red and green cellophane lenses then its time to change the way you think about 3-D. Inside Sydney Observatory is a 3-D space theatre dedicated to providing an entertaining and educational way of exploring the Universe. The 3-D space theatre is part of our daytime programs and night-time tours.
The awesome 3-D technology that makes the theatre work was developed here in Australia by the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at the Swinburne Institute of Technology in Melbourne. The theatre shows both short films and interactive content dealing with astronomy and space exploration themes. To keep up to date the Observatory has developed its own unique 3-D presentations on the transit of Venus, Mars Exploration Rovers and Cassini at Saturn. Currently four films developed by Swinburne are available for viewing.
How does the 3-D work?
Every day we look at the world around us through two eyes. Each eye sees a slightly different view of what we look at. Our brain looks at the difference between what the left and right eye see and turns it into a 3-D picture inside our brain.
In a 3-D theatre you will find two projectors at the back of the room. One projector is for the left eye, the other projector is for the right eye. Without special glasses you would see double when you look at the screen. Using a special pair of polarised glasses your brain then compares the left and right images, using the slight differences between the two images to build a stunning 3-D picture.
Elysium 7
(9 minutes)
Hop on board the futuristic tourist ship Elysium 7 and take a 3-D journey to Mars, with surface features based on data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.
After stars
(11 minutes)
A red supergiant star is about to end its life – but when the star explodes, will it produce a black hole or a pulsar? Join the reporter Margus, the scientist Dr Jozalin and the robot WLR-309 as they find out.
The little things
(10 minutes)
Comets, asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects. This is the story of the amazing little things in the solar system, and the incredible space missions that have visited them.
Our Sun: what a star!
(19 minutes)
Have you wondered where the Sun came from? How it is powered? And what its ultimate fate is? Learn all about our nearest, and most important, star.
