Kraví hora 2
616 00 Brno, Czech Republic, e-mail@hvezdarna.cz
(use Brno Planetarium as a short)
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N. Copernicus Observatory and Planetarium in Brno
Kraví hora 2 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic, e-mail@hvezdarna.cz (use Brno Planetarium as a short) |
established 1954, has a lot of offers for visitors of Brno.
dome with 200 seats serves mainly to school groups during the day, but any group over 40 people can order a programme there. The entrance costs CZK 30 (20 for children and students, 15 for fairy tales). In Czech, we offer shows for children over 4 years up to programmes for adult people with a bit of experience in astronomy. All these shows include an actor (astronomy teacher).
For another languages, there is just one show (with no actor), People and Stars , having an English, German and French version. It is necessary to book the programme in advance. The entrance fee is CZK 60, groups over 15 people are welcome. The show takes 40 minutes. A visit of the observatory can follow.
In the evening, there are regular astronomy shows in Wednesday and Saturday and geography ones in Thursday. At least twice a month there is a unique lecture on astronomy.
has a unique projection apparatus, a heliostat, showing the Sun on the screen in the lecture hall. The image is one metre across, and shows even traces of granulation when the air is calm. Solar limb darkening is apparent at the first glance, faculae are very conspicuous, not to speak about sunspots. Magnified thin clouds and visible convection of the air are interesting another times. Solar spectrum can be projected with the main lines being clearly visible. As the best view is from a close distance, a reasonable number of visitors is up to 15 in one group.
(The same lecture hall is also used for demonstration of the laws and phenomena of optics, for groups up to 30 people and booked in advance.)
Most variability is offered during the observation of the evening sky . From October till March it takes place daily outside Sundays and holidays at 7 p.m. During summertime it is at 9 p.m., just in September at 8 p.m., in July and August the opening days are only Wednesday till Saturday.
Plenty of telescopes in several spaces, including a large open roof, can be employed. If the sky is overcast, the observatory equipment and spectra of street lamps can be shown and a small planetarium with 30 seats is used for an interactive star show.
For groups of at least five people, a programme at the Observatory can be ordered for any time, preferably afternoon. All of the astronomers leading the programmes speak English, some German as well. The entrance fee is CZK 15.