Gallery one
Ten Thousand Suns
Until 12 April
Every star the dome can project, printed at one millimetre per light year and hung as a single sheet you walk around.
Included45 min
Nineteen metres of dome, a lens theatre that retraces its own starlight every frame, and three galleries of instruments you are allowed to turn. Meridian Row, Halbury — open seven days.
Prices include a numbered seat at any dome session running that day, plus the three galleries. Come back within the same week on the same ticket — the desk stamps it on your way out.
One dome session of your choice, the lens theatre, the LANTERN-4 gallery and the hall of mathematics. Re-entry the same day.
Same access as an adult ticket. Children under 12 need an adult in the same booking; the 13:30 dome session is written for under-sixes.
Book four seats side by side in one go. A third child joins a family ticket for $10 if you add them at the desk.
Two hours with a guide, a dome session matched to your year group and a worksheet pack. One adult goes free with every eight pupils.
Walk in without booking, any session with a free seat. Four guest tickets a year, 10% off in the shop and first booking on late dome nights.
Every session is narrated live by the presenter on duty, so no two runs are identical. Seats are released four weeks ahead; the counter next to each slot is what the desk sees right now.
The survey craft hangs over the turntable in gallery two. Pick a node from the list — or click the craft itself — and the hall brings that piece forward, lights it and puts its data card on the stand beside you.
Three trails leave from points a hair apart and are pushed by the same three lines of arithmetic. Turn the dial on the plinth and watch where the shape stops being a shape.
The two brass balls are the system’s resting points. Below ρ = 24.74 a trail falls into one of them and stays; above it, the trail keeps swapping wings and never repeats a loop it has already made.
Two travelling shows and two of our own. Everything except the dark sky lab is covered by a standard ticket.
Every star the dome can project, printed at one millimetre per light year and hung as a single sheet you walk around.
Quadrants, orreries and clock drives from four centuries, with three of them still turning and one you may wind yourself.
Chaos, tilings and probability as machines with handles. The Lorenz plinth is the one visitors queue for.
Two hours on the roof with the 300 mm reflector and a presenter. Cancelled and refunded automatically if the cloud sheet closes in.
ORRERY HALL opened in 2009 in the shell of the Meridian Row silo, because the silo already had the one thing a planetarium cannot fake: a round room nineteen metres across with no column in the middle.
We build our own exhibits. The lens theatre, the LANTERN-4 craft and the Lorenz plinth were all drawn, machined and wired in the workshop under gallery two, which is why you can see the cable runs and why the presenters can open anything that breaks. Fourteen people work here; nine of them present.
“We refuse to run a recorded show. If a presenter cannot answer the question from the third row, we have no business charging for the seat.”
Step-free from the street to every gallery and to row one of the dome. Relaxed sessions on the first Sunday of the month: house lights half up, doors open, sound down by 12 dB. Assistance dogs welcome anywhere in the building.
My daughter asked the presenter why the ring around the black hole was thin, and got a twenty-minute answer at the plinth afterwards. That is the whole review.
Brought thirty Year 9 pupils expecting to lose half of them to the gift shop. They spent forty minutes turning the Lorenz dial and arguing about it.
The late dome with the live score is worth the annual pass on its own. Half a star off because the cafe shuts at seven and the session ends at half past eight.
Ten minutes on foot from Halbury Central, or bus 14 to Meridian Bridge. Two accessible bays outside the door; the multi-storey on Carrow Street is free after 18:00.
| Monday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
| Tuesday | 10:00 – 18:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 – 21:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 21:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 22:00 |
| Saturday | 09:30 – 22:00 |
| Sunday | 09:30 – 19:00 |
Tell us the day and the session and the desk holds the seats for 24 hours. You pay on arrival — nothing is charged here.
The desk has your request. Ingrid confirms by email within one working day.