On 26 April 2018, the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre was officially inaugurated, and its doors are open to the public from 28 April 2018. The centre, located at ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany, is a magnificent showcase of astronomy. It provides visitors with an immersive experience of astronomy in general, along with ESO-specific scientific results, projects, and technological breakthroughs.

This spectacular evening picture, taken a few days before the opening, shows a conjunction of the planet Venus and the young crescent Moon in the background.

The very first panel of the exhibit in the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre, explains why we study the Universe. From here, visitors will be taken on a journey all the way across the Universe, learning about stars, galaxies, black holes, exoplanets and much more.

This exhibit in the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre gives the visitor a chance to see for themselves how much a 2kg weight (on Earth) would weigh on the other planets in the Solar System.

A view from inside the planetarium at the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre, which opened its doors to the public on Saturday 28 April 2018. The building is open five days a week and features planetarium screenings, tours and a permanent exhibition in both German and English. The 360-degree tilted planetarium dome does not just give the audience the sensation of watching the Universe, but of being immersed in it. The Sun rises - not over the horizon as we see it on Earth, but over the curve of the Earth itself.

Visitors to the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre are seen here enjoying a tour of the exhibition by Mathias Jäger, coordinator of the ESO Supernova’s permanent exhibition.

Learn all about the ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) at the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre. The ELT will be “The Worlds Biggest Eye on the Sky” and will be a 39-metre mirror telescope sited on Cerro Armazones in northern Chile, close to ESO’s Paranal Observatory.

The Star-roof, which weighs almost 30 tonnes, consists of glass panels set into a metal framework made of triangular sections — 262 of them, arranged to artistically represent some of the constellations of the southern sky. More information about the roof construction is available in this ESO Supernova announcement.