In the Database (WPD):
for each planetarium, if old information and photos are found, additional pages are added (under the links "Previous or Next installation")
You can find the old closed planetariums with the Query page and select "Closed" status.
Status "closed" means: planetarium permanently closed or destroyed.
Status "old" means: old installation (often a starball) of a still active planetarium.
- 1903: the Bavarian entrepreneur Oscar von Miller announced plans to create an industrial museum in Munich (Germany)
- 1904: Siegfried Czapski (Zeiss) is in the Presidium board of the Deutsches Museum (DM)
- 1905: Miller wanted to install a Copernican room (heliocentric) and a Ptolemaic room (geocentric). Sendtner instrument company of Munich is chosen.
- 1906: opening of the Deutsches Museum in Munich (in temporary quarters)
- Summer 1912: Miller draw a room-scale plan for a motorized Copernican planetarium; calls out to all of Germany (plans in a trade magazine) but not to Zeiss; he refuses all the proposals.
- August 1912: Miller ask Zeiss for a telescope for the west dome and asks Rudolf Straubel to replace Czapski at the DM office. Straubel declines (sick) but ok for the west dome telescope.
- October 1, 1912: plan of the Ptolemaic planetarium with the addition of the starry sky on a 7m sphere, transparent, the observers will be standing in the center on a platform (therefore the evening sky in Munich according to the date and time + the solar system). Someone suggests a projection for the Solar System.
- February 4, 1913: E. Hindermann (Basel, Switzerland: the Orbitoscope) sends a letter to Von Miller
- 1913: Franz Miller proposes plans for a system close to Gottorf's globe
- May 15 to 20, 1913: Von Miller writes to Kurt Sorge (Krupp subsidiary) who offers 3 companies including Zeiss first
- July 22, 1913: Von Miller asks Zeiss if they can build the Copernican planetarium
- July 30, 1913: Max Pauly (Zeiss Astro department) answers no.
- October 1, 1913: Straubel at DM: ok for the construction of 2 giant planetariums (at the 10th annual meeting of the presidium of the DM): Von Miller met Straubel the day before to discuss the manufacture of the planetariums
- October 3, 1913: in an official letter: the DM asks Zeiss to build a Copernican planetarium and another Ptolemaic for their new building
- October 7, 1913: Franz Miller is sent to Munich to study the plans and buildings of the DM
- January 15, 1914: Von Miller sends a letter to Zeiss, no answer
- February 21, 1914: Von Miller sends a telegram, the same day Zeiss says he is ready to receive Dr Franz Fuchs
- February 24, 1914: meeting in Jena (Straubel, Bauersfeld, Meyer all from Zeiss and Fuchs from DM (Von Miller absent from Fuchs but not from Bauersfeld in his 1957 article): Bauersfeld proposes a projection solution for planets and Straubel for the stars, with the enthusiasm of the other participants.
Birth of the concept of the modern planetarium: a device in the center of the room capable of projecting the night sky (stars: recognize the constellations, planets, Moon and Sun) on a screen dome, the visitors are inside
- March 20, 1914: Von Miller: letter to Zeiss for the new design
- April 6, 1914: Von Miller: after a return trip to Jena: new plans
- July 28, 1914: WW1
- During the war, the work continued (Meyer and Villiger at the head of the astronomy department at Zeiss)
- February 3, 1917: concept is made public for the first time
- July 7, 1917: Meeting at Zeiss: Straubel, Bauersfeld, Wieland, Becker and Von Miller for DM
- May 24, 1918: Straubel sends a telegram to Von Miller announcing a donation of 5,000 marks for the construction of the DM library
- shortly after, Meyer is sent to DM.
- November 11, 1918: end of the war
- March 21, 1919: Meyer wants to send a letter in which he proposes to abandon the project of projecting the stars (too difficult) But Bauersfeld intercepts him and, on March 24, proposes a solution
- October 17, 1922: Zeiss files a patent
- from July to September 1923: a 16 meters concrete-shell dome was fabricated on the Zeiss factory roof in Jena. (first public demonstrations with the prototype "Mark 1")
- September 17, 1923: exchanges between Bauersfeld and Von Miller for a demonstration in Munich
- October 21, 1923, a 10m dome opens in Munich with the same projector.
- from October to December 1923: demonstrations in Munich before returning to Jena
- January 1924: Mark 1 returns to Jena
- April 3, 1924: the patent for the projector is filed in the name of Bauersfeld.
- from August to October 1924: public demonstration on the roof of Zeiss (to the dismay of Von Miller)
- May 7, 1925: opening ceremony of the Deutsches Museum "first" modern "official" planetarium with a Zeiss model I (special thanks to Straubel and Meyer), new (and definitive) place for the Deutsches Museum
- 1925: development of the second prototype "Mark 1" (for Düsseldorf) and the first production model "Mark II" (Barmen, Leipzig, Jena, Dresden, etc.)
- May 1926: first installation Zeiss Mark II (in Germany)
- May 1927: first installation abroad (Austria)
- Fall 1939: WWII (last installation of Zeiss II)
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Before the World War II (the first sixteen years)
- August 1923: on the roof of the Zeiss factory in Jena, 16m, Zeiss 1 (fist public projection)
- October 21, 1923: Deutsches Museum of Munich, 10m, Zeiss1 (the same projector)
- May 7, 1925: Deutsches Museum of Munich, 10m, Zeiss 1 (first official opening to the public).
- May 18, 1926: Barmen, (Wuppertal), 24.6m, 600s, first Zeiss II (destroyed)
- May 20, 1926: Leipzig, 24.7m, 600s, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- May 23, 1926: Düsseldorf, 29.8m, 1,000s, Zeiss model 1b, (during 6 months)
- July 18, 1926: Jena, 23m, 400s, Zeiss II
- July 24, 1926: Dresden, 24.7m, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- November 27, 1926: Berlin, 24.8m, 424s, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- January 2, 1927: Düsseldorf, Zeiss II (the model 1b go to Liegnitz). (Zeiss II lost)
- March 22, 1927: Mannheim, 24.5, 514s, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- April 10, 1927: Nuremberg, 23m, Zeiss II (purchased February 12, 1925)
- May 7, 1927: Vienne, 20m, 460s, Zeiss II (moved the January 8, 1930 in other place: Praterstern).
- June 25, 1927: Liegnitz, 13m, Zeiss model 1b (from Düsseldorf then The Hague (Netherlands) in 1934.
- April 29, 1928: Hannover, 19.7m, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- May 16, 1928: Stuttgart, 24.7m, 450s, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- October 28, 1928: Rome, 23m, 370s, Zeiss II
- November 5, 1929: Moscow, 25m, Zeiss II
- April 15, 1930: Hamburg, 20.6m, 360s, Zeiss II
- May 10, 1930: Chicago, 20.7m, Zeiss II (Adler)
- May 15, 1930: Stockholm, 25m, Zeiss II (Universal Exhibition, 4.5 months), then Skansen, Goteborg, Morehead: 1949
- May 20, 1930: Milan, 19.6m, 407s, Zeiss II
- 1931: Lubeck, 4m, 25s, Nachtigall prototype
- November 1, 1933: Philadelphia, 20m, Zeiss II (Fels)
- February 20, 1934: The Hague, 11.8m, Zeiss model 1b (from Liegnitz), until 1976.
- May 14, 1935: Los Angeles, 22.9m, 663s, Zeiss II (Griffith)
- June 7, 1935: Brussels, 23m, 500s, Zeiss II (Universal Exhibition)
- October 2, 1935: New York, 22.8m, 763s, Zeiss II (Hayden)
- July 13, 1936: San José, 13.7m, 98s, Lewis prototype (Rosicrucian Park)
- March 13, 1937: Osaka, 18m, 350s, Zeiss II (No 24)
- May 5, 1937: Paris, 23.5m, 600s, Zeiss II (Universal Exhibition, 7 months) then Palais de la Découverte: 1952
- October 20, 1937: Springfield, 10.2m, 100s, Korkosz (Seymour)
- 1937: Bronshoj, 5m, 35s, Nachtigall prototype
- October 30, 1938: Tokyo, 20m, 600s, Zeiss II (destroyed)
- March 4, 1939: Haarlem, 5m, 25s, Ge Pieterse prototype (then Vlissingen: 1957)
- October 24, 1939: Pittsburgh, 19.8m, 381s, Zeiss II (Buhl)
More
​- WPD
- IPS: Planetarium Centennial
- GDP: Centennial of the planetarium
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Bibliography:
- Jordan D. Marché II, Theaters of time and Space: American Planetaria, 1930-1970, ed. Rutgers University Press, 2005
- William Firebrace, Star Theatre, The story of the Planetarium, ed. Reaktion books, 2017
- Heinz Letsch, Captured Stars, ed. VEB Carl Zeiss Jena, 1959
- Walter Villiger, Le Planétaire Zeiss, (Das Zeiss-planetarium), ed. Bernard Vopelius, 1926