Bodensee Planetarium und Sternwarte

Description

On the Seerücken ridge on the outskirts of Kreuzlingen lies the Bodensee Planetarium und Sternwarte; the facility is jointly operated by the Stiftung Bodensee Planetarium und Sternwarte and the private association Astronomische Vereinigung Kreuzlingen. A public observatory has been in place here since 1976, and the offer was expanded in 2002 to include a public planetarium.

The operators aim to make astronomical knowledge accessible to broad sections of the population. Their outreach includes guided group tours and weekly public observing evenings at the observatory; the planetarium follows a weekly schedule of rotating programmes for a general audience.

For observations, the observatory has had a 20-inch Cassegrain telescope since April 2011; additionally, an apochromatic refractor with a 193-mm aperture is available. Besides the permanently installed instruments in the observation dome, a roof terrace can be used for portable telescopes. In the ten-metre planetarium dome there is a ZKP-3 planetarium projector; combined with two high-performance video projectors and a surround-sound system, the starry sky and the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets are presented audiovisually there.

The backstory begins in 1961 with the founding of the Astronomische Gruppe Kreuzlingen by Paul Wetzel as a loose association. With his then-regionally large 30-cm Newtonian reflecting telescope he attracted interested people on both sides of the border; lectures and the membership circle grew, and in 1969 the idea of a local observatory matured. After the city of Kreuzlingen promised a suitable site under building rights in June 1969, planning began in 1970; a fundraising campaign brought in almost 100,000 francs by March 1972. Statutes were enacted in 1972 to formalise matters: on 8 January 1972 the Astronomische Vereinigung Kreuzlingen (AVK) was founded as an association, and on 28 February 1972 the AVK signed the foundation deed of the „Stiftung Sternwarte“, thereby enabling construction. The observatory was inaugurated in 1976; the planetarium followed in 2002.

The programme also includes two planet trails, each six kilometres long, that end at the planetarium: the Planetenweg Süd runs from Siegershausen station, the Planetenweg Nord from the Bodensee-Therme Konstanz. Both hiking trails begin at the dwarf planet Pluto, which until 2006 was still regarded as a full-fledged planet.