- Telescope sessions
- Special events/school holidays
- Historic buildings and grounds
- Exhibits
- 3D space theatre
- Beanbag planetarium
- Flagstaff
- Time ball
- Eclipse/astronomy tour 2010
3D SPACE THEATRE
A 3-D space theatre presentation is included with our night and day telescope viewing or beanbag planetarium sessions. Bookings are not required for day visits, but are required for night visits.
The awesome 3-D technology that makes the theatre work was developed 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. The Observatory has developed its own unique 3-D presentations on the transit of Venus, Mars Exploration Rovers and Cassini at Saturn.
A selection of the 3d movies and presentations available:
| After
stars - 11 mins 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. |
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| Bigger than big - 7 mins Compare the sizes of the Moon, planets, stars and galaxies. See how the biggest stars known make our Sun look like a grain of sand. |
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| Detective - 13 mins Learn what it’s like in space and demonstrate the scale of the inner Solar System while trying to solve a case of a possible alien attack. |
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| Elysium 7 - 9 mins 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. |
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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.
A selection of the 3d movies and presentations available (cont'd):
| The little things - 10 mins 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. |
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| Observing Sydney - 7 mins See Australia's oldest working telescope and discover Sydney Observatory's fascinating history spanning over 150 years. |
| Our Sun: what a star! - 19 mins Where did the Sun come from? How it is powered? And what its ultimate fate is? Learn all about our nearest, and most important, star. |
| Realising Einstein's universe - 6 mins A journey into the natural beauty of a universe that Einstein envisaged almost 100 years ago, with simulations made possible with modern supercomputers. |
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| Spinning in space - 10 mins High above the Earth, on board the International Space Station, animated astronaut Tom Andrews explores the amazing properties of spiral galaxies with the aid of his voice-activated computer assistant. |
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