What is a planetarium, almost everyone knows since school days. But often this knowledge is more figurative than subjective. Few people visited it more than several times in their lives. However, the planetarium in each new city is fraught with a lot of interesting things.
This is not an ordinary space museum, but a room in which you get the opportunity to explore that huge, immense and inexplicable thing that has existed for billions of years and will always exist. The mysterious space, galaxies and questions about other civilizations excite everyone. And rumors about aliens leave many inexplicable phenomena and conjectures.
At least somehow get acquainted with the stellar world today is possible on the Internet, through the media and through a trip to the planetarium.
What is a planetarium
Many people ask this question. The word planetarium means "planet" in New Latin and comes from the late Latin - planeta.
Most often, this term refers to scientific and educational centers. They organize models of the celestial sphere with various space objects. In these establishments, there are quite ample opportunities to simulate such effects as a lunar or solar eclipse and much more.
However, the term "planetarium" has a different meaning of the word. It is also called the installation for projecting pictures of the starry sky onto a screen in the form of a dome.
A bit of history
The first sample of an optical planetarium was designed and built in 1923-1924 by the German engineer W. Bauersfeld.
And the very next year in the same museum - in Munich - the first planetary center was opened.
The USSR lagged behind Europe for a short while. In 1929, the first scientific institution was built and opened in the capital.
However, this idea was by then not new. Back in 1919, O. Miller expressed his intention to create a prototype on the territory of the German Museum he had created.
By the beginning of World War II, every Soviet schoolboy already knew what a planetarium was. During this period, development ceased for obvious reasons.
However, after the victory, the development of this branch of science resumed with renewed vigor; by 1974, stationary planetariums were already operating in 62 different cities of the USSR.
Planetariums in the world
What is a planetarium in the understanding of today's scientists? First of all, this is the use of digital technologies, to which most modern scientific institutions have switched today. They provide image quality that is comparable to modern cinemas, so today the concept of "full dome cinema" is becoming more and more common.
The oldest functioning planetarium is also the first in the world. The building, created on the basis of the German Museum, is still in operation and can accommodate more than 150 spectators.
The world's largest planetarium was built in Japan, and although it can accommodate the same 350 spectators as the Moscow one, its dome has a diameter of as much as 35 meters.
But the most visited planetarium is located in New York (USA) and takes more than 400 spectators at a time. It is possible to recreate a virtual digital universe using real astronomical data.
Well, the spherical museum in Estonia, located in the city of Tartu, is recognized as the most unusual planetarium. It is designed for only 19 seats, but the audience is surrounded by stars from all sides: both under their feet and above their heads.
Planetariums in our country
During the Soviet Union, the planetarium built in almost every major city, whose significance had lost its purely scientific and educational function, began to be used for propaganda and populist purposes. Along with the creation of unique demonstrative instruments of world significance, these institutions carried out active educational activities substantiating the ideas of scientific atheism.
To date, the oldest Moscow planetarium is still functioning, which is designed for more than 350 seats. It was opened after reconstruction in 2011.
The Space Museum even has its own holiday - International Planetarium Day, which falls on the closest Sunday to the vernal equinox (March 22).
On this holiday, many planetariums arrange an open day. They host many bright and exciting shows that will be interesting to visit for both children and adults.
The reconstruction of the Moscow Planetarium took 17 years and 4.125 billion rubles. But the planetarium believes it was worth it. After the grand opening on June 12, 2011, the restored and expanded complex on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya, 5, is visited daily by up to 3,000 people. There was nothing like this even in the 1960s and 1970s, in the era of the general enthusiasm for astronautics. How long this interest of the population in the stars will last, no one undertakes to predict.
“The facility has been closed for almost 20 years. During this time, everything has changed: the country, life, technology. When the old planetarium closed, there weren’t even mobile phones yet,”- He speaks Andrey Bordunov, General Director of the Management Company "Pokrovsky Gates"(manages the planetarium, 100% of the shares are owned by the Moscow Property Department).
High tech
Immediately after the second opening, the Moscow Planetarium hosted foreign colleagues from 85 countries. An international scientific conference of directors of planetariums was held here. “The director of the Australian was delighted with what he saw and admitted that the Moscow Planetarium is the best he has ever been to,”- rejoices Andrey Bordunov. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anatoly Cherepashchuk believes that the new equipment in the restored planetarium is one of the most advanced in the world.
And it's also complicated. Approximately 200 km of various networks had to be laid inside the building. More than 30 engineering and 20 technological systems operate here at the same time, all of them have a high degree of protection against overloads, external influences and other adverse factors.
No less attention is paid to the safety and comfort of visitors. The building is under constant video surveillance. The Antiterror system includes stationary and manual metal detectors and radiation monitoring. The planetarium serves almost 200 people.
The dome-screen of the Moscow Planetarium is the largest in Europe(diameter - 25 m, area - 1000 sq. m). Unique lifting mechanisms were used to install perforated screen plates,- says chief engineer of the Moscow Planetarium Alexander Filatov. It was difficult to achieve the invisibility of the seams between the plates. In a conventional cinema, the screen canvas is solid, and the dome screen consists of many pieces. The desired effect was achieved due to the precision in the manufacture and fitting of the plates during installation, as well as with the help of a special paint covering the dome canvas.
Particular attention was paid to energy-saving technologies: they replaced incandescent lamps with diode and halogen ones, installed light sensors and dimmers for spot brightness adjustment, etc. Water is also saved here - plumbing with automatic water supply sensors is installed. All systems in the building are computerized and controlled from a single control panel.
We did not forget about the accessibility of rooms for wheelchair users. There are ramps, on a special elevator a visitor in a wheelchair can go up to Great Starry Hall , Cafe on the lift get in interactive museum "Lunarium" . Anastasia Kazantseva, Press Secretary of the Moscow Planetarium, stressed: here they tried to create a complex that meets European quality standards, and in the West they always take into account the interests of people with disabilities. “Every day I see at least one person in a wheelchair among the visitors and I am proud that the planetarium is one of the few places in Moscow that can accommodate disabled people” she says.
heavy legacy
The history of the Moscow Planetarium has many glorious pages: many famous Soviet astronomers and cosmonauts took their first steps to the stars here. In 1994, the planetarium was closed for overhaul, which dragged on for 17 years.
Management Company Pokrovskie Vorota came to the site in 2008. The reconstruction of the building (the capital government allocated 1 billion rubles for it) had been going on for 15 years. The builders raised the historical building by 6 m, made a two-level extension, where the interactive museum is now located, and erected a monumental ramp around the planetarium.
Moscow Planetarium OJSC, which at that time owned the building and supervised its reconstruction, had debts of 1.7 billion rubles. The share of the city in the joint-stock company was 61%, a group of private investors, including the former CEO of the planetarium Igor Mikitasov, owned 39% of the shares, but it was not possible to reach an understanding between the shareholders and the city authorities. The history of the reconstruction snowballed into scandalous details: there were lawsuits, creditors filed suits, Igor Mikitasov made statements in the press about a raider seizure. In the end, at a meeting of shareholders, it was decided to declare bankruptcy of the Moscow Planetarium OJSC.
In 2009, with the participation of the management company Pokrovsky Gates, a deal was made for the sale and purchase of its property. The buyer was the new OJSC Planetarium, 100% of its shares belong to the Moscow Property Department.
“We bought the object at auction for 1.8 billion rubles. as unfinished and returned the money to the main creditor - the government of Moscow,- recalls Andrey Bordunov. — There were only two people at the facility at that moment and not a single sheet of documentation! The last builder left here at the beginning of 2006. For more than two years, the building stood without heating and maintenance. In addition, it turned out that many technologies were not observed during the reconstruction process. We amounted to 180 million rubles. acts on various shortcomings, conducted an independent examination, which assessed the difference between funding and the actual work performed. But the statute of limitations had passed, and there was no one to file a claim. Then we started construction, and in a year and two months the object was completed.”
In parallel, planetariums of other countries were studied at the UK. “At that time, no one understood what the project should be like, there were no scientific specialists here, only one person remained from the museum staff. We were the initiators of the creation of the Academic Council headed by Rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy, - continues Bordunov. — Scientists treated us with caution for a long time, until at some stage of communication they believed: we are not going to set up a casino or a shopping center here, there will still be a scientific and educational center here. After that, our cooperation became much more effective.”
Who is the head in this house
Relations between the operating company and the designers were not easy. The reconstruction project of the Moscow Planetarium, developed by the Mosproekt-4 creative workshop under the guidance of architects Alexander Anisimov and Olga Semenova, in 2000 received a prize and a diploma of the 1st degree from the Union of Architects of Russia. Naturally, the architects resisted making any changes, although, according to Andrey Bordunov, almost 10 years have passed since the approval of the project, during which time many solutions have become outdated.
There was another problem: the Moscow Planetarium is a historical building(architects - M. O. Barshch and M. I. Sinyavsky), and interference in its design is prohibited by law. At the same time, a public building must comply with modern standards to ensure the safety and comfort of people.
For example, there should be wide passages here so that in the event of an emergency evacuation people do not overwhelm each other, it is necessary to separate the entrances and exits to the functional areas. The designers had no clear idea how to combine these conflicting requirements. “We had to invent everything ourselves, draw and explain what we want to get in the end”,- He speaks Andrey Bordunov. As a result, the old concept of the complex has undergone changes.
The place of the restaurant, which was planned to open in a new extension, was taken by "Lunarium", the wardrobe occupied the area intended for cabinets. A place has been found for a modern conference hall, and a teleconference has already been held with the Far Eastern University. In addition, now visitors do not have to go outside to get from one zone to another (this was exactly the case in the old reconstruction project).
“The only thing we didn’t achieve was we couldn’t demolish the ramps from the outside of the building,- regrets Bordunov. — But in the old project, their heating was also laid down. We calculated that we would have to pay almost 10 million rubles for street heating. in year". According to the old project, an aquarium was also planned in the basement of the building, the construction of which would cost $ 1 million and about $ 600,000 a year - its maintenance.
With the ramp, the architects really made a mistake. In terms of its monumentality, this structure is similar to a transport overpass (or entrance to a parking lot), the planetarium building is practically invisible behind it.
Even after reconstruction, there is not enough space in the planetarium, although the new complex is almost 6 times larger than the old one(it increased from 3,000 to 17,000 sq. m.). The project attendance is 1.5 million people per year. The building will not be able to accept such a flow with all its desire, it is already crowded there now, when there are about 3,000 people a day, and this is 1,000 less than planned.
About capital and planetarium
The Moscow Planetarium was first opened in 1929.(the building was built in a year). There were only 13 planetariums in the world at that time (the 13th was just Moscow), and only three of them were located outside of Germany. But the Soviet government was determined to educate the labor masses and did not spare money for expensive Zeiss equipment. In total, about 250,000 rubles were spent on the construction and equipment of the planetarium. - the amount for those times is astronomical. On this occasion Vladimir Mayakovsky even wrote a poem that ended like this: "Every proletarian should look at the planetarium."
The opening of the planetarium in June 2011 was awaited with no less excitement than 82 years ago. This time, the Moscow government has already spent about 1 billion rubles on unique equipment, including 5 million euros for Universarium M9. But the biggest costs fall not on “smart technologies”, but on construction and installation work.
In the process of reconstruction, the original frame of the building was restored, new elements were erected on its basis, and in addition, new premises were added. All alterations and redevelopments, according to Pokrovsky Gates, cost almost 1.3 billion rubles, in total, 4.125 billion rubles were invested in the new planetarium. That is 1 sq. m of a fully equipped Moscow Planetarium cost the city budget $8,000. Bordunov believes that the figure is quite acceptable for the Garden Ring: "Naked price" 1 sq. m in concrete here fluctuates between $10,000-15,000”.
“It is cheaper to disassemble the building to the foundation, strengthen it and build a new object, the appearance of which will correspond to the original,- argues Marina Velikoretskaya, CEO of Colliers International FM. — If the restoration involves the preservation of the original box, the work can cost 3-5 times more than new construction.. Investments in this complex facility, according to her, will pay off no earlier than in 10 years. “Now we are self-supporting, and then time will tell”, - He speaks Bordunov.
“Our main goal is to awaken the passion of children for knowledge of the world around us and space, to raise personnel for space science”,- they say planetarium staff. They estimate that 80% of the visitors will be children. Toddlers are interested in playing interactive museum "Lunarium", watch the program Small Star Hall which is aimed at young children.
By the way, visitors to the planetarium come from different. To the fact that in "Lunarium" the exhibits would break down frequently, the staff were ready. The principle of the museum is that everything can be touched and experienced in action. Therefore, in the planetarium there is even one technical day a week when all the exhibits are repaired. But the fact that in a month the Foucault pendulum, the largest in Russia, would have to be repaired, no one could have foreseen. One of the visitors decided to ride the pendulum and broke the 6-meter cable.
Will change
Anatoly Cherepashchuk, director of the State Astronomical Institute. P.K. Sternberg, Deputy Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Planetarium:
- The Moscow Planetarium now has the most modern equipment in the world, first of all, this concerns the new digital device Universarium M9. The directorate of the planetarium purchased several American films to be shown in the Great Hall of Stars. One film costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and after five years you need to renew the license to show it. Now it is important to master the new technical capabilities of the planetarium's intellectual technology and learn how to create such computer programs and films on our own. Until now, we have been solving the problem of how to quickly restore the planetarium, now it is important to organize work with the population. If people are bored in the historical museum, we will try to compensate for this with interesting excursions. The exposure will also change.
According to the newspaper "Vedomosti"NOD “Journey to the planetarium. Solar system"
Equipment: slide projector, medals of the planets, various cereals for composing the solar system, yellow circles, cards with missing letters in the names of the planets.
Target: introduce children to the structure of the solar system.
Tasks: to acquaint children with the Sun and its significance, influence on the climate; promote the development of cognitive activity of children.
Develop imaginative thinking, creative imagination, coherent speech.
Lesson progress
1. Educator. Guys, today we will make an excursion to an unusual place. In order to find out where, you must guess the riddle (Slide 2 "Riddle")
(A riddle about space is being guessed. The answer “space” appears on the screen. Slide 3 “Space”)
2. Guys, there are no such devices so that we can go on an excursion into space. But we can go with you to the planetarium. Guys, what do you think, what is a planetarium and what can be seen there? (children's answers. 4-5 slides "Planetarium")
Question: Why does the planetarium building have a hemisphere roof? (children's answers)
Educator: The planetarium is a building with a domed roof. The starry sky is projected onto the dome with the help of the apparatus. This allows us to consider the planets and stars, to study them.
And here we are in the planetarium. We look at the dome - this is the universe, the starry sky. (6 slide "Starry sky")
Educator: Guys, what surrounds us in outer space? (stars, planets, sun, satellites, meteorites, comets) (7 slide)
3. Educator: What do you think the planets look like from Earth? (small, large, we don’t see ....)
Let's do an experiment to answer this question.
Take all circles.
Put it in front of your eyes. What do we see? (nothing)
Start slowly moving it away from your eyes.
What happens to the circle? (He seems smaller from a distance)
Conclusion: The circle appears smaller when moved away from the eyes, and when brought closer to the eyes, it seems to increase.
4. All items appear smaller when removed. The sun is very big, but it looks small because The sun is far away. The stars are very large, many of them are larger than the Sun, but they seem small because they are far away (8 slide)
The starry sky is so huge that we won't be able to explore it in just one trip to the planetarium. Today we will talk only about the solar system. And what is it, we will now try to understand.
5. And what is the solar system?
Children: This is the sun, around which nine planets revolve, many small planets - asteroids and comets. (9 slide "Solar system")
The sun is the most familiar astronomical object to all people. This is our star that gives us life. Because of it, during the day all other space objects become invisible. The sun gives off light and heat until it sets below the horizon. And only then the sky becomes dark enough to see the rest of the stars. The sun is the same star as all other stars, it's just closer to us. (10 slide "Sun")
The planet we live on is called "Earth" and it is friends with the sun. What does the sun give to our planet? (heat and light) (11 Slide "Earth")
6. We cannot live without the sun, so people have shown respect for the sun for a long time. They composed proverbs and sayings about the sun, poems. (12 - 13 slides "Proverbs and sayings")
- The red sun on the white light warms the black earth.
- What is gold to me, the sun would shine!
(ask how the children understood the meaning of the saying)
The poem is read by a child:
Sun
The cloud hides behind the forest,
The sun is watching from heaven.
And so pure
Good, radiant.
If we got him
We would kiss him.
7. Educator: But the Earth is not the only planet in space that is "friends" with the Sun. Earth is one of the planets of the large solar family. What planets do you know? (Slide 14 "Solar system")
Slide 15 "Planets"
Which planet is the largest? (Jupiter)
Which planet is the hottest? (Venus)
Which star gives us warmth? (The sun)
Which planet "rolls" like a ball on a saucer? (Uranus)
Which planet from the Sun is our planet Earth? (Third)
Educator: Please note that the sizes of the planets are different, but they are all much smaller than the sun
8. PHYSMINUTKA (music sounds, children stand on rugs).
Over the Earth late at night, Just stretch out your hand, ……… hands stretched up
You will grab onto the stars: ………………………………………………….. Hands up, sideways down
They seem nearby……………………………………………………………. clench hands into fists
You can take a peacock feather, …………………………………………. hands before eyes
Touch the hands on the Clock, ……………………………………………… Hands in front of the eyes
Ride a Dolphin,……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… with legs together, arms up, swing
Ride on the Scales. ………………………………….tilt down, hands wave tick-tock
Over the Earth late at night, …………………… tilt down, hands waving tick-tock
If you look at the sky,……………………………………… squat hands forward
You will see, like clusters,………… Feet shoulder-width apart, arms sway to the sides
There are constellations hanging…………………………………… hands down, raise your head up
stretched up, hands up. We take the constellations with our hands
9. Educator. To represent the dimensions of the solar system, we compose the solar system:
Take a sheet of paper with the image of the solar system, a cup with objects that will replace planets for us.
The sun is a ball (10 cm), then
1. Mercury - millet
2. Venus - rice
3. Earth - rice
4. Mars - peas
5. Jupiter - shell
6. Saturn - shell
7. Uranus - beans
8. Neptune - beans
9. Pluto - peas
The remaining bodies of the solar system cannot be depicted, since they are negligible. (Slides 16-18 "Planets")
Name the giant planets? (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)
Name the terrestrial planets? (Venus, Earth, Mars)
Name the smallest planet? (Mercury)
Now we can imagine the planets of the solar system.
10. Game
Orbits of different planets are depicted on the floor. Children are given paper medals depicting the planets (the colors of the planets and their orbits must match). In the center of the circles is a child depicting the Sun. Invite the other child planets to take their places in the orbits. If there are difficulties, once again return to the slide. Then the children are invited to disperse in different directions and, at the command "Planets - in places!", Build a model of the solar system. Which of the planets will take its place faster? Then each planet must make a circle around the Sun. At the same time, draw the attention of children: the closer the planet is to the Sun, the faster it will pass in a circle. The Earth goes all its way around the Sun in a year (from one New Year to another). To demonstrate this clearly, take a large calendar and, as you move around the circle of the child-Earth, turn over its pages, naming the months. Thus, the child will begin to move in January, and will return to his place in December.
11. To explore the universe, we have to go to space more than once, so we must fill the spacecraft with fuel. To do this, we need to complete the task.
You need to enter the missing letters in the names of the planets.
(children enter.)
VEN…RA
UP…TER
MA…S
…LUTON
NEPT…N
12. (Slides) In order, all the planets
Children. Call any of us:
Once - Mercury,
Two - Venus,
Three - Earth,
Four is Mars.
Five - Jupiter,
Six - Saturn,
Seven - Uranus,
Behind him is Neptune.
He is eighth in a row.
And after him already, then,
And the ninth planet
called Pluto.
13. Educator. Bottom line: guys, our first trip into space has come to an end, today we learned a lot, saw a lot. Tell us what new things we learned (what is a planetarium, solar system, orbit, planets). And how much more interesting and unknown awaits us ahead.
To see the stars on a clear sunny day, you need to go down to the bottom of the well. And you can admire the picture of the starry sky on a cloudy day only by taking the plane above the top edge of the clouds. To see one of the most beautiful constellations - the famous Southern Cross - we, the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, need to travel to the equator. The sun and stars can only be observed simultaneously from a spacecraft...
Halley's comet will make its next approach to Earth in 2060. The next solar eclipse in the European part of the country will be witnessed by our distant descendants - it will happen in 2126. And only in the XXXVIII century, earthlings will be able to see Donati's comet again - one of the brightest comets of the 19th century.
But all these and many other celestial phenomena can be seen on the artificial sky of the Moscow Planetarium any day. How did this become possible? The history of the Planetarium is a fascinating story about the thorny path to the stars.
Preparation for construction
In the middle of 1927 By decree of the Moscow Council, a Permanent Commission was created for the construction of a planetarium in Moscow. By that time, 12 planetariums had already been opened in the world - ten in Germany and two abroad, in Vienna and Rome. Moscow became the third planetarium outside of Germany and the thirteenth in the world.
By the spring of 1928, the USSR trade mission in Berlin finally agreed with the Zeiss firm on the supply of the Planetarium projection apparatus (serial number 13) and with the Dickerhoff firm on the construction of a fabric dome that serves as a screen for demonstrating the sky.
The Moscow City Council allocated 250,000 rubles for the construction of the planetarium.
This amount included the cost of building not only the building itself, but also its equipment, a cinema auditorium, an astronomical museum, a library, auditoriums for circles, laboratory facilities, as well as an arrangement on a flat roof of an astronomical observatory for mass excursions.
Meanwhile, the design of the building of the Moscow Planetarium was going on.
K. N. Shistovsky (first director) and architects M. O. Barshch, M. I. Sinyavsky
Young architects M.O. Barshch and M.I. Sinyavsky, later - professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute. They presented a project made in the then fashionable style - "constructivism". This style appeared in architecture in the 20s - 30s of the twentieth century, and its task was - "designing the environment by creating structures in clear external forms, formed from simple stereometric bodies and assembled on a reinforced concrete frame." The construction of the Moscow Planetarium was a significant event at that time. On September 23, 1928, Ogonyok magazine reported: “It is remarkable that, given our material poverty, with our strict import plan, we are importing and installing an expensive structure, which is not found in many capitals (...). The Moscow Planetarium, according to its organizers, will be something like a people's university (...). Attracting with external showiness, the planetarium will at the same time help the working people to broaden their mental horizons. Therefore, its construction should be hailed as an event of exceptional cultural importance.”
After appropriate comments, the Moscow City Council approved the project, on the basis of which the main, cylindrical building of the Moscow Planetarium was built on Sadovaya Kudrinskaya Street, 5.
first stone
in the foundation of the Moscow Planetarium was laid on the day of the autumn equinox - September 23, 1928.
In mid-February 1929, specialists from Germany arrived in Moscow to install an iron frame - a spherical dome - a screen. The Planetarium apparatus was already in Moscow at that time and was stored in packed boxes in the premises of the Moscow Department of Public Education.
At the end of May, when the auditorium was ready, the installation of the Planetarium apparatus began under the supervision of Zeiss specialists.
On August 3, 1929, the installation of the apparatus was completed. On this day, the acceptance and demonstration of the work of the planetarium to the leadership of the Moscow City Council was scheduled. The show completely satisfied those present, the acceptance of the equipment was completed.
During August, September and October closed screenings took place.
Selection of museum materials
Scientific and methodological work at that time was in full swing. The main themes, the selection of material were carefully thought out, strictly scientific content was taken into account, as well as the methodology and form of presentation. Several main themes were developed, satisfying not only the needs of the mass audience, but also school programs. A plan was presented for organizing an astronomical library-reading room and an astronomical observatory serving visitors and capable of conducting scientific work.
However, the most important issue was the creation of a large astronomical museum. The discussion about how to be a museum of the planetarium was extremely heated, as two opinions fought: should there be a museum at the planetarium, or should the planetarium become a museum. The majority voted for the second proposal, and the museum itself was supposed to be deployed on a grandiose scale, requiring a special, large cubic capacity of an extension, with laboratory rooms, large dynamic models, classrooms, etc. The planetarium was conceived as the final and generalizing spectacle seen in the museum. But the idea of creating a museum was never realized at that time.
Grand opening of the Moscow Planetarium
The opening of the planetarium to the general public was scheduled for the October holidays. November 5, 1929 is considered the birthday of the Moscow Planetarium.
Here is how the “Chronicle” wrote from the journal “World Studies” (vol. XVIII, No. 6):
“On November 5, the solemn opening of the Moscow Planetarium, the first in our Union and the 13th in the whole world, took place in Moscow. The opening was attended by t.t. Litvinov, Lunacharsky, Semashko and others.
Mayakovsky dedicated the poem “Proletarian, proletarian, come into the planetarium” to the opening of the planetarium, which ended with the words: “Every proletarian should look at the planetarium”
The evolution of scientific and educational programs
Apparatus "Flickering Stars", in the photo mechanic Lebedev. One of the first Soviet inventions to complement the Planetarium apparatus, author - K. N. Shistovsky
The planetarium began its activities with a small series of lectures. However, its subject matter grew from year to year. If in 1929-1930. there were only three themes in the repertoire, then already in 1939. their number reached 40. The structure of the Universe, the origin and development of the solar system, the structure of the Sun, the Moon and its movement, comets and meteors, eclipses - these are the topics covered in the Planetarium.
With the expansion of work, it became necessary to supplement the technical base of the Planetarium with new instruments and apparatus.
The great merit of the Moscow Star House is that it was here, almost immediately after the opening, with the blessing of K. G. Paustovsky, that the first design and production work began to create a “living sky”, to enhance the effect of presence. A group of experimenters for 45 years was headed by a talented designer, the first director and lecturer of the planetarium, Konstantin Nikolaevich Shistovsky.
By 1934, stars were already twinkling on the dome of the Moscow Planetarium, clouds were floating, a comet was walking across the sky, polar lights were swaying, the August meteor shower was going on, solar eclipses were happening, Tsiolkovsky's rocket was flying with a fiery tail. At the end of the session, a scarlet dawn was occupied in the hall, and to the music of R.M. Glier, specially arranged by him for the Planetarium, a large, bright “Soviet Sun” rose. None of this was in any planetarium in the world until the end of the 50s. So the planetarium ceased to be just an optical device, but became a domed theater, where the sky is reproduced in all its diversity by all means available to modern technology.
The beginning of the work of the astronomical circle
The year 1934 is also significant in that the first astronomical circle began its work at the Moscow Planetarium. Then, on the initiative of the Pionerskaya Pravda newspaper, two dozen children gathered within the walls of the Planetarium for their organizational meeting. The first leader of the circle was the well-known popularizer of astronomy Vitaly Alekseevich Shishakov. In those years, professors, prominent astronomers K.L. Up to 500 schoolchildren a year were engaged in astronomical circles of the Planetarium.
The leaders in different years were I.F. Shevlyakov, F.Yu. Zigel, R.I. Tsvetov, V.A. Bronshten, K.A. Bolt. There was no such youthful astronomical school, and there is none anywhere in the world. Many graduates of the astronomical circles of the Moscow Planetarium today are the color and pride of the national science of the stars.
In the same year, one of the world's first amateur groups for the observation of variable stars was created at the Planetarium under the guidance of Professor P.P. Parenago.
Planetarium and rocket and space technology
In 1934-1938. The Stratospheric Committee worked and met on the basis of the Moscow Planetarium. Its employees studied the upper layers of the atmosphere and dealt with the problems of jet propulsion. During the meeting of the Presidium of the Stratospheric Committee, here, in the Small Hall, one could see S. P. Korolev, V. P. Glushko, V. P. Vetchinkin, M. K. Tikhonravov, Yu. A. Pobedonostsev, G. E. Langemak.
At the Planetarium, there were engineering and design courses that the Stratospheric Committee inherited from the famous GIRD (a group for the study of jet propulsion). Lectures were given by V. P. Glushko, G. E. Langemak, M. K. Tikhonravov. Astronomical and geophysical questions were advised by professors B. A. Vorontsov-Velyaminov and P. P. Parenago. It was in the Moscow Planetarium that for the first time in the world a method for studying the dynamics of the stratosphere was developed and implemented using stratospheric probes with smoke bombs. In the basement of the Planetarium, the first liquid-propellant rockets designed by A.I. Polyarny, L.K. Korneev, and D.S. Dushkin were designed and manufactured. The first Soviet two-stage rocket designed by I. A. Merkulov was built here and tested in Ostankino. From a group of rocket scientists in the basement of the Moscow Planetarium, a world-famous design bureau (KB-7) has grown to develop liquid rockets.
Star theater at the Planetarium
In the prewar years, the Planetarium literally became the "Star Theater". It staged plays in which professional actors played. The performances of Galileo, Giordano Bruno and Copernicus were staged with great success in the domed hall. Already in the first performance, the characteristic features of the Planetarium Theater were clearly visible: the ability to create fascinating performances, organically weaving scientific statements into the fabric of the dialogue, as well as the ability to illustrate what was said, making extensive use of the starry sky and other capabilities of the Planetarium apparatus.
Galileo at the Cardinal. Galileo - artist A. I. Parkryshev, cardinal - Honored Artist of the RSFSR A. I. Bakhmetiev. Scene from the play Galileo
Planetarium and school
The Moscow Planetarium, thanks to the technical means at its disposal, is becoming a unique set of visual teaching aids. Under the starry sky of the Planetarium, students of Moscow schools conduct practical classes in astronomy and geography, making “round-the-world trips”, “travels to the North Pole”, receive visual evidence of the sphericity of the Earth, its daily and annual movement, etc. High school students are engaged in spherical astronomy. Lecture cycles for schoolchildren are coordinated with school programs and are an excellent addition to the knowledge that students receive at school.
As you know, astronomy is an observational science. An astronomical observatory is needed to observe celestial objects and phenomena. For these purposes, it was planned to create a special astronomical site in the Moscow Planetarium. For the first time the idea of its creation arose in 1939. It was decided to build the site in the early summer of 1941. However, the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War destroyed these plans. The astronomical site of the Moscow Planetarium was opened in 1947 for the 800th anniversary of Moscow.
During the war, the Moscow Planetarium, in addition to holding the usual mass lectures, provided practical assistance to the soldiers and commanders of the Soviet army in the form of special lectures of the military cycle for intelligence officers and military pilots. In addition to the lectures held in the Star Hall, traveling lectures on astronomy were organized. These lectures were given in hospitals, sponsored military units, in the auditoriums of the City Military Commissariat, and in air defense propaganda centers.
The Moscow Planetarium worked throughout the war and only once was closed for a period of two months.
Astronomy Site and Observatory
On the astronomical platform near Nabokov's globe
In 1946, the construction of the Astronomical Site began. For the first time in the history of planetariums, this complex of cognition tools, addressed to living luminaries, was conceived by the author of the first Soviet school textbook on astronomy, Mikhail Evgenievich Nabokov. And it was built as a public city of the sky by the works of Moscow astronomers and employees of the Planetarium K. L. Baev, R. I. Tsvetov, A. B. Polyakov, E. Z. Gindin. The astronomical platform recreated the tradition of ancient stellar abodes, such as the temple complex in Heliopolis, Stonehenge in England, the Observatory-Museum in Alexandria, the Nuremberg town of Regiomontana, Uranienborg Tycho Brahe, the Beijing Observatory, the Gdansk Observatory of Jan Hevelius, the celestial complex Samrat Yantra in Jaipur.
Planetarium - a center for the popularization of natural science knowledge
Since 1947, the Moscow Planetarium has been operating in the complex - the Star Hall, the lobby, the Astronomical Site and the Observatory. It becomes the country's largest center for the promotion and popularization of natural science knowledge. Thousands of lectures on astronomy and earth sciences are given every year not only in the Planetarium itself, but also at enterprises and institutions in Moscow and the region.
The Moscow Planetarium provides great scientific and methodological assistance to other planetariums. Its employees develop new demonstration devices, create a series of transparencies and annotations for them, and various methodological aids. Seminars, lecture schools, technical consultations are held on the basis of the Planetarium. All planetariums of the country began their activities with the direct assistance and participation of the Moscow Planetarium.
In the Moscow Planetarium, navigators of polar and long-range aviation are trained, those who subsequently laid air routes to Antarctica study the starry sky of the southern hemisphere.
Planetarium and astronautics
The Moscow Planetarium has made a considerable contribution to the development of national cosmonautics. It was here that, starting in 1960, for 15 years, astronavigation classes were held with future cosmonauts. Pilot-cosmonaut A.A. Leonov, once speaking in the Star Hall of the planetarium, said: “The path to Baikonur began here, in the Moscow Planetarium.”
In the seventies, in connection with the development and triumph of Soviet cosmonautics, there was an extraordinary interest in everything connected with space. The Moscow Planetarium covers all the most interesting events in this area, new lectures are being prepared promptly, telling about space flights and the results of space research. The planetarium is the only place where you can get objective and reliable information on space topics.
During these years, the popularity of the Moscow Planetarium is growing extraordinary. It becomes the most consistently visited in the world - from 800 thousand to a million visitors a year. Always well equipped, it exchanges experience on an equal footing with the capital planetariums of other countries. The history of the Planetarium reminds us that in many undertakings it was and remained the first.
The unique building of the Moscow Planetarium - a monument of the era of constructivism, the pride of Soviet architecture - is becoming an integral part of the architectural appearance of the capital - its silver elongated dome makes it look like a fantastic interplanetary rocket rushing into the sky.
Replacement of the apparatus "Planetarium"
Apparatus "Planetarium" No. 313
In 1977, the old apparatus "Planetarium" (serial number 13), installed in 1929, replaced the new apparatus "Planetarium" (serial number 313) with an automated control system. The new capabilities of the device made it possible to create a fundamentally new product for the Planetarium - an automated audiovisual program. The most interesting popular science programs, such as - "About Heaven and Earth" for children, "Myths about the great Hellenes" and "The sky of beautiful Hellas" based on ancient Greek myths, "Under the sky of the planetarium", "Newtoniana" were created by an honored worker of culture Russian Federation Stanislav Vasilievich Shirokov. He is rightfully considered an innovator in the development of a whole area of scientific and methodological technologies in the planetariums of our country.
On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Moscow Planetarium was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
In 1987, the 1X International Congress of Planetarium Directors was held at the Moscow Planetarium, which was attended by 139 delegates.
The history of the Moscow Planetarium contains many glorious pages, but there are truly dramatic moments and long years of oblivion.
Unfortunately, the general shadow of stagnation fell on the activities of the Moscow Planetarium. The installation of the new apparatus was, perhaps, the last tangible action aimed at its development.
In 1994, the Moscow Planetarium was closed for major repairs.
In preparing the material, articles by K.N. Shistovsky, V.A. Shishakov, K.A. Portsevsky, V.N. Komarov, S.V.
