Planetarium

As soon as we stepped into the hall, we were asked to take off our shoes. Than Mr Allen opened up the planetarium and we clambered in single file, however we had to be quick as the huge dome was deflating.

Inside was epic; it was spacious, warm and dark. It was a bit claustrophobic as there were a lot of people but we soon got used to it. Mr Allen, an astrologer, started by telling us about the perspective of the sun, moon and earth.  He held up a polystyrene ball and said this is earth, he then said the dome was the sun. That was amazing. Who thought the sun was that big? He then held up a pea sized polystyrene ball, he said that was the moon. Who thought the moon was so small! He then told us about the planets orbiting the sun. It was really interesting to find out about the time scale of different planets orbiting. He also told us about the amount of galaxies that exist, there are up to 200 billion galaxies. WOW!

Near the end, it was the best time of the whole experience. Mr Allen placed a constellation “lamp shade” over a torch, this projected what the Romans used to think were the pictures in the sky, and it looked a bit like a dot-to-dot. Then he showed how to remember where the northern star is. He also told us that because we are in England, in the northern hemisphere, we always get to see the northern star unlike the other stars. He then changed the “lamp shade” to one that projected actual stars, we then tried to see if we could see the images we saw before, we could see: a frying pan, a Pegasus, lion, 2 bears and a weird man with sword.

We enjoyed the whole experience it was exciting and fascinating.

Written by: Chelsie-Paige and Lauren