Planetarium Nights

Ticket to the Universe / Source: Museum Victoria / Photo: Museum Victoria

Take a journey off planet Earth and beyond the stars.

Under the 16m dome of the Melbourne Planetarium, you will enjoy a guided tour of our vast and incredible Universe in this entirely presenter-led show. Using the Planetarium’s distinctive technology and scientific data from astronomical organisations around the world, you will travel through the most complete and accurate 3D atlas of the Universe ever made. 

These datasets, which have been compiled by the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium with support from NASA, clearly show the different scales and structures of the Universe.

As well as travelling to the outer edge of the universe and back, the presentation also includes a look at the night sky. Discover which planets, stars and constellations are easily seen from a Melbourne backyard and how our view of the sky changes, night by night.

Time always surrounds us, yet it is so intangible and abstract. This show tries to get closer to this mysterious force, observing and exploring its symbols, ideas and notions by weaving them together with music and sound in an entertaining and thought-provoking way. The result is a non-narrative fulldome arts and music film in the shape of an immersive audiovisual concept album.

For thousands of years we have looked to the stars at night in wonder and awe. Their mysteries have inspired curiosity across all cultures and civilizations.

Narrated by multiple-award-winning Australian actor Sigrid Thornton, Starlight is told through the eyes of Margaret, as she steps back in time to relive childhood fears of the dark that awoke her curiosity about the night sky. Join Margaret as she takes you on an out-of-this-world journey to discover constellations and ancient cultures, the birth and death of a star and the inner workings of our Sun.

Starlight features stunning fulldome visualisations of being inside a supernova explosion and drifting through a stellar nursery, a rich gaseous nebula that is collapsing into stars.

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

Alone in Greenland, electronic music producer Molécule captures the sounds of Arctic to compose his next piece. Inspired by this adventure, -22.7°C. The full Dome Experience allows the spectators to live the experience of Molecule’s music creation.

The amazing landscape of the Far North becomes a living organism, and surrounding the audience makes the experience more direct and realistic. Sounds punch a hole through the veneer of reality and take us to an unprecedented degree, deep beneath the ice and up into the firmament, to feel the caress of the Northern Lights.