OBSERVATORY AND PLANETARIUM

Modernised planetarium

The observatory and planetarium are located on the southern outskirts of Hradec Králové. The basic construction took place between 1947 and 1961. The site for the observatory was chosen on the ridge between Zámeček and Nový Hradec Králové. The position of the main dome is 15° 50′ 21″ east longitude, 50° 10′ 38″ north latitude, 287 m above sea level. The observatory has a large number of instruments, for example the historic planetarium ZKP-1 has been used at the Hradec Králové observatory since 1957. At the beginning of 2015, a new digital planetarium was opened with five Velvet projectors that produce images on a 12-metre diameter hemispherical projection screen. The building also houses a branch of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute – Solar and Ozone Observatory.

http://www.astrohk.cz/

The Observatory and Planetarium in Hradec Králové also created 2 trails – Planetary and Galactic. The Galactic trail shows eleven objects in our Galaxy (the Milky Way) plus one neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The chosen scale of 1 in 170 billiards corresponds to the distances of the stops and the dimensions of the bodies shown on the information boards. The total length of the trail is 9.5 kilometres. The Planetary Trail is a 1-in-1 billion scale model of our Solar System – 1 metre on the trail is equivalent to 1 million km in reality. The dimensions of the bodies (models of the Sun and planets) and the distances between them correspond to this scale. At each of the 13 stops, you will find a model of a Solar System body and a corresponding information board with basic information and interesting facts about the body. The total length of the trail is 6.5 km, part of it passes through the Hradec Králové urban forests.

TIPS FOR TRIPS