Kusumabai Motichand Planetarium in the New English School on Tilak Road, opens its doors to Puneites.
Puneites will be able to witness starry nights despite the cloudy weather and rains as the planetarium housed in the New English School on Tilak Road, opens its doors once again.
The planetarium that has enthralled students and citizens alike for 50 years was dysfunctional since 2004.
“The equipment at the planetarium had become dysfunctional in 2004 due to wear and tear. Attempts were made to repair them, but in vain,” said Vinayak Ramdeshi, a mathematics teacher at the school.
Having the distinction of being the first planetarium to be set up in Asia, the facility was set up when the school shifted to Tilak Road from Nanawada in 1954.
“The trustees thought that something should be done to make the school unique and also mark its re-establishment. So they came up with the idea of building a planetarium,” Ramdeshi said.
“A dome was constructed on the building’s second floor with donations from the Walchand Group of Industries and this is how the Kusumabai Motichand Planetarium took shape,” he added.
The equipment was imported from Splitz, a Philadelphia-based company, for Rs50,000. It has minute holes, some so small that they cannot be seen with naked eye.
“The equipment is an optical machine and is manually operated. Only two such machines exist in the world at present — one of them is in the US and the other is in Sydney, Australia — but these gadgets are not functioning at present,” said Ramdeshi.
The repair work of the equipment was taken up last year after Dilip Kotibhaskar, the chairman of the planetarium, undertook the initiative.
Eminent astronomer and member of the fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, London, Parag Mahajani, and faculty at Fergusson College’s physics department, SG Kulkarni, were instrumental in getting the equipment repaired.
“It was difficult to know which parts of the equipment were malfunctioning since a manual did not exist. Replacing the parts was also not possible since the company has stopped manufacturing such equipment. We had to make designs of the internal parts and check which parts had worn off. The spare parts had to be made here and replaced,” he added.
Last September, the duo along with Ramdeshi took up the repair work fulltime and completed it within 17 days.
With a seating capacity of 100, the planetarium which shows 6,000 stars at a time, will host its first show on Saturday for outstation students who would be visiting the school. The facility will start hosting shows for the public by July.
“The charges will be Rs25 per head. There will be three shows of 45 minutes each between 6 pm and 9 pm,” said Ramdeshi, who would also give a running commentary during the shows.
“Schools can contact us if they want to hold shows for their students. They will be given discounts,” he added. Those interested can call New English School at 24336029.
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