Planetarium Nights

What keeps Galaxies together? What are the building blocks of the Universe? What makes the Universe look the way it looks today? Researchers all around the world try to answer these questions. We know today that approximately a quarter of the Universe is filled with a mysterious glue: Dark Matter. We know that it is out there. But we have no idea what it is made out of.

This planetarium show takes you on the biggest quest of contemporary astrophysics. You will see why we know that Dark Matter exists, and how this search is one of the most challenging and exciting searches science has to offer. Join the scientists on their hunt for Dark Matter with experiments in space and deep underground. Will they be able to solve the Dark Matter Mystery?

Plus What’s in the Sky Tonight (WITST), a presenter-led tour through the night sky.

Pink Floyd’s iconic album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, originally released in March 1973, turned 50, and what more fitting a place to celebrate it and experience it than in a Planetarium, through the music set to visuals. With the help of modern technology, the idea of a show combining breath-taking views of the solar system and beyond, played out to 42 minutes of The Dark Side of the Moon in surround sound, has been embraced by the band. NSC Creative have led the visual production efforts, working closely with Pink Floyd’s long time creative collaborator Aubrey Powell from Hipgnosis. 

Each song has a different theme; some futuristically looking forward and some a retro acknowledgment to Pink Floyd’s visual history, all relating to a time and space experience, embracing up to the minute technology that only a Planetarium can offer. A truly immersive and all-encompassing surround sound and visual treat that will transcend reality and take you way beyond the realms of 2D experience. 

Worlds of Ice invites us on a journey to the farthest reaches of the solar system, travelling through the many dimensions of ice—from the remote territories of the Arctic to a scientific complex nestled under the South Pole. We experience it all immersed in a kaleidoscopic igloo from which we emerge utterly dazzled by the chronicles of an icy wonderland, to which Beatrice Deer, a popular figure of Inuit culture, has lent her unique voice. 

The film explores the two-way relationship between humans and ice, a protean substance whose astonishing dynamics universally affect biology, astronomy, ocean sciences, anthropology, culture and artistic expression. But Worlds of Ice also rattles us, revealing how our disastrous actions are responsible for the melting polar ice caps, and how close we are to the tipping point of dramatic climate change. A sobering reality indeed. Ice. Precious, and vital.

Plus What’s in the Sky Tonight (WITST), a presenter-led tour through the night sky.

Winner – Best Art Film, 2024 Dome Under Film Festival, XYZZY will lead you on a psychedelic musical odyssey through a complex fictional world. Video director Simon Ward created XYZZY by translating Jess Johnson’s hand-drawn compositions into animated webs of flesh mandalas, self-replicating architecture, undulating worms, hallucinogenic pattern, and messianic alien deities. The dynamic visual atmosphere is charged with 90s-inspired electronic synthesiser tracks from musicians Andrew Clarke, Luke Rowell, Stef Animal and Lachlan Anderson.