Planetarium in Niihama

After the stop at the castle, we continued on to the planetarium and museum. This planetarium held the top spot as the largest in the world until March, 2011 when the new planetarium in Nagoya was completed. The planetarium in Niihama is 30 meters (90 feet) diameter and can seat 300 people. The one in Nagoya is 35 meters (115 feet) diameter and can seat 350 people.

Entrance to the planetarium and museum

Once inside you have to go down some stairs and walk a path underneath the water (seen in the picture below). They have plexiglass so you can look up through the water, which gave a nice effect while viewing the building.

What self-respecting planetarium director in Japan would start a program without first showing Hello Kitty pictures? This planetarium has the ability to project 25,000 stars at once.

At the bottom of the stairs that leads to the dome, there is a representation of the relative distances of the orbits of some of the planets in our solar system.

Space suits

A chunk of iron that arrived as a meteor.

They also had a nice dinosaur exhibit.

 Along with many fossils

These are bones, teeth and husk from an ancient type of elephant.

 For those that think all the above is boring, the museum also has a number of more fun for kids style exhibits.

A race car and its engine

 Information on trains