Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium

So My next destination after Bangalore Palace was the planetarium.

Not the best planetariums I have seen, but it is a good place to take your kids to on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

The sky theater show  ticket on the counter costs 50rs. You can also book tickets for the show through bookmyshow.com. I felt I was the luckiest person alive as I reached around 12 o clock and I was that person who got the last ticket :) The shows are in Kannada and English, luckily the 12:30 show was in English. If my information is correct, the next English show would be at 4:00pm. So check the show timings and language of the show before you book your tickets. If you don't book your tickets on bookmyshow, you can also purchase them at the ticket counter by paying 50 rs(for single adult) and 30 rs(for a single child). Children below 3 years are not allowed inside the sky theatre. The ticket counter opens only half an hour before each show. The 12:30 show in English is about the Solar system and the 4:30pm show in English is about the Universe. Not sure of the difference as I have seen only the Solar system show.

There was information about the discoveries,  Astrosat and PSLV inside the planetarium.

Astrosat was launched by PSLV-C30 rocket from Satish Dhawan space center, Sriharikota on Sep 28, 2015 and just 22 minutes later was orbiting around earth at an altitude of 650km. It takes 97 minutes to complete one revolution. Carrying 6 highly specific object oriented instruments(payloads), Astrosat is in the right position in space to explore and enrich astrophysical studies(Info taken from Astrosat banner at planetarium). The Astrostat joins select band of observatories to study UV Rays, X rays and Gamma rays of space .

A banner displaying information on CRAB Nebula. There are many such banners and info cards displayed there, I just clicked only the ones which interested me.

Inside the sky theater, before the show started, kids were making noises. A request to parents, teach kids some discipline especially on how to behave in public places, kids are cute and all that, but if they make so much of noises especially when a show is about to begin, it is not cool. Kids behave according to what parents teach, so if they make annoying noises at the show, it is up to the parents to take care of it and make them silent! Here is a look at inside the planetarium. The seating capacity is 200. Eatables and water bottle are not allowed inside. 2 tickets per head are issued. Show will be suspended when visitors are less.

There is also a mirror dome which show case the shows natural selection and dawn of the space age, but these are available to the public only on request. Seating capacity is 40. I have not gone for these.
 There is a science park outside the planetarium which consists of various scientific devices which kids and adults alike can try on. Here are some of those .

 Musical pipes. A set of pipes of slightly varying length are placed here. You can strike them one by one, each produces a sound of different pitch. Longer the pipe, lower the pitch. The sound is produced because the pipe and the air molecules vibrate when  struck.

 The north south passage of the sun marks the seasons. This instrument measures the movement of the sun. The dial reads the north south coordinates called the declination at noon, the meridian transit of the sun. When the sun has a declination exactly equal to the latitude of the place, it will be at zenith at noon. For Bangalore this is at 13 degrees as can be read out from the dial.It happens on April 25th and August 28th of every year when there is no shadow at noon.

Beads on rotating rods. When the rods are at rest, beads remain stationary at the bottom of the rods. On setting the rods into rotation. the beads slide along the rods and remain stable at some height depending on the speed of rotation. The beads rise until their displacement from the central shaft, their axis of rotation, is maximum. Speed governors that are used to limit maximum speed of heavy duty vehicles work on this principle.

Polarized light. The tube has Polaroid sheet at its 2 ends. The sheet at one end is fixed. See though the other end and slowly rotate the Polaroid sheet placed there. You will notice that the brightness of light gradually changes from minimum to maximum and vice versa. Polaroid sheets are used to make and view 3D movies.

Newtons color plate. On rotating the disc,  what we see is a color resulting from the superposition(overlapping) of all these colors. The resultant color depends on the colors used in sectors, the size of the sectors speed of rotation and the eye of the individual. No two people would sense the same color.

Kaleidoscope. These long strips of plane mirrors are glued together to form an equilateral triangular prism. One end of the prism has a glass sphere. Through the other end, whatever the object in front of the sphere is,  you will see multiple symmetrical images.

Archimedes pump. One of the oldest devices used to pump water for irrigating lands. It comprises a hose pipe that spiral along the length of the bigger cylindrical pipe which is kept inclined to the ground. The bottom end of the hose pipe is dipped in water container and cylinder is gently  rotated in a clockwise direction. Water is steadily transported up through the hose pipe and comes out of the top end. This machine finds use  among others in transporting materials such as grains and in generating power on a small scale.

There were many more such instruments like pendulums, lift yourself up and our solar system. You can visit there and try all that by yourself! There is a children's park right next to it. The one which I found most attractive is our own PSLV(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) :)

So get ready to spend your next weekend  with your kids at Jawaharlal Nehru planetarium! The science park has made learning science entertaining and fun! Opens at 10 or 11 am and closes by 5:30pm. Closed on Mondays and second Tuesdays.