An all-new Planetarium reopens

BHUBANESWAR: There’s finally a piece of good news for sky watchers in the city. The all-new Pathani Samanta Planetarium was finally reopened on Tuesday. People will have a better viewing of celestial and cosmological events as the planetarium has got a long-awaited facelift. It was closed on August 23 last year. Science & Technology Minister Niranjan Pujari inaugurated the revamped planetarium.The renovation works were carried out in two phases and repair of the main building and other amenities inside the planetarium was taken up in the first phase. Besides, seating and AC arrangements were changed by October-end.The planetarium can now seat 200 persons against the earlier 140.In the second-phase work that began in November, Digistar 4 - the largest selling digital planetarium system in the world - was installed in the theatre. The system was procured from US-based company Evans & Sutherland at a cost of Rs 5.5 crore. The digital projector is said to be a first in eastern India.“This replaces 22-year optomechanical equipment as it was going phut frequently and had become obsolete,” said Subhendu Pattnaik, Director of the Pathani Samanta Planetarium.Previously, the planetarium was able to screen just two films a day, but with the new digital facility, any number of films can be screened with 3D-motion effects.“On demand, the shows can also be changed immediately and even language changed,” said Pattnaik, adding that three shows - ‘Mysteries of the Night Sky’,‘Wonders of Universe’ and ‘Secrets of the Sun’ will be presented initially.Provisions have also been made for special shows on request.Following renovation, the ticket rates have been hiked to Rs 25 for adults and ` 15 for kids.While repair and renovation works were carried out by the IDCO at a cost of around Rs 1 crore, installation of the digital planetarium system was done under the supervision of a high-level technical committee formed by the Science & Technology Department. The committee included directors of Nehru Centre, Mumbai, Birla Planetarium, Kolkata, and Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. The State Government funded the renovation.Though it was planned to be reopened on December 13, the birth anniversary of Pathani Samanta, the works were not complete by then. Sources said even as all the works were completed by March, a date for reopening could not be fixed as neither the Chief Minister nor any minister was available to do the inaugural.