A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is the large dome-shaped projection screen onto which scenes of stars, planets and other celestial objects can be made to appear and move realistically to simulate the complex 'motions of the heavens'.
The celestial scenes can be created using a wide variety of technologies, for example precision-engineered 'star balls' that combine optical and electro-mechanical technology, slide projector, video and fulldome projector systems, and lasers. Whatever technologies are used, the objective is normally to link them together to provide an accurate relative motion of the sky.
Typical systems can be set to display the sky at any point in time, past or present, and often to show the night sky as it would appear from any point of latitude on Earth.
Since the early 1990s, fully featured 3-D digital planetariums have added an extra degree of freedom to a presenter giving a show because they allow simulation of the view from any point in space, not only the earth-bound view which we are most familiar with.
This new virtual reality capability to travel through the universe provides important educational benefits because it vividly conveys that space has depth, helping audiences to leave behind the ancient misconception that the stars are stuck on the inside of a giant celestial sphere and instead to understand the true layout of the solar system and beyond.
For example, a planetarium can now 'fly' the audience towards one of the familiar constellations such as Orion, revealing that the stars which appear to make up a co-ordinated shape from our earth-bound viewpoint are at vastly different distances from Earth and so not connected, except in human imagination and mythology. For especially visual or spatially-aware people, this experience can be more educationally beneficial than other demonstrations.
Music is an important element to fill out the experience of a good planetarium show, often featuring forms of space-themed music, or music from the genres of space music, space rock, or classical music.
Simple 1500 Jitsuyou Series Vol.17 - Planetarium is the 17th game in the practical 1500 series released for the Playstation One console by D3 Publisher.
This time the game let the user have an interactive planetarium with information about the Universe, the planets, constellations, etc. The game features also a quiz mode.
Manufacturer's description:
Narrated the episodes described in the mystic surrounding it with a typical constellation of the month, enjoy the soft feel just like a planetarium. Year / Month / Day / You can instantly see the current position of the stars with the specified time, with a starry sky mode this month. It is also packed with extras such as story mode and quiz mode constellation constellation myths explained the lore of the constellation 88.
Features:
- First person perspective.
- 2D graphics
- Cartoon graphics
- Educational theme.
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