News › ZEISS • Bochum Pla­ne­ta­rium Recei­ves New ZEISS Technology

ZEISS VELVET dome pro­jec­tion sys­tem up and running

The ZEISS pla­ne­ta­rium in Bochum has been equip­ped with new tech­no­logy: its 11 ZEISS VELVET LED pro­jec­tors will offer hig­her reso­lu­tion and excep­tio­nal color bril­li­ance thanks to LED light sources. These third-gene­ra­tion pro­jec­tors have repla­ced the ten-year-old first-gene­ra­tion ZEISS VELVET pro­jec­tors. So what’s spe­cial about the ZEISS pro­jec­tors? They offer the world’s best con­trast – and con­ti­nue ensu­ring that astro­no­mical simu­la­ti­ons pro­duce very rea­li­stic results in com­bi­na­tion with the exis­ting ZEISS UNIVERSARIUM Model IX star pro­jec­tor. Increased bright­ness will cause the num­ber of pixels on the dome to dou­ble. The tried-and-true syn­chro­niza­tion of the opto-mecha­ni­cal night sky and its digi­tal pro­jec­tions will remain a par­ti­cu­lar fea­ture of the shows at the Bochum pla­ne­ta­rium. High-per­for­mance len­ses from ZEISS and enhan­ced video pro­ces­sing will deli­ver razor-sharp images. Visi­tors to the pla­ne­ta­rium will thus enjoy a more plea­sant expe­ri­ence. Vir­tual worlds and a rea­li­stic impres­sion will seam­lessly intertwine.

Spec­ta­cu­lar shows to impress visitors

Bochum pla­ne­ta­rium direc­tor Prof. Dr. Susanne Hüt­te­m­eis­ter said: »We could­n’t wait to see the new pro­jec­tors‹ ›first light‹ – and we were totally wowed. Even our regu­lar shows now boast grea­ter detail, the likes of which our dome had never seen. And we now look for­ward to impres­sing our audi­en­ces with the new pro­jec­tion sys­tem.« The Bochum pla­ne­ta­rium hosts exci­ting pre­sen­ta­tion topics and a wide variety of events, and has seen new record visi­tor num­bers year upon year. »The link bet­ween digi­tal high-con­trast and opto-mecha­ni­cal star pro­jec­tions will con­ti­nue to turn a visit to the Bochum pla­ne­ta­rium into a veri­ta­ble expe­ri­ence in the future, one that will stay in people’s minds,« says Mar­tin Kraus, Head of ZEISS Pla­ne­ta­ri­ums. Accor­ding to Kraus, this deve­lo­p­ment is lin­ked to the aim of mee­ting audi­ence expec­ta­ti­ons in terms of modern pre­sen­ta­tion for­mats and being able to inte­grate inno­va­tive appli­ca­ti­ons into the pro­gram struc­ture. This is one of the key reasons for the city of Bochum to moder­nize its pla­ne­ta­rium. »The VELVET LED pro­jec­tors are a spe­cial ZEISS deve­lo­p­ment, which matches pla­ne­ta­ri­ums‹ par­ti­cu­lar needs. The pla­ne­ta­rium in Bochum is set­ting high stan­dards for both its­elf and the tech­no­logy,« says Kraus. »We are deligh­ted that we have been able to gain our long­stan­ding cus­to­mers‹ trust for our solu­ti­ons.« The new pro­jec­tors with LED light sources are a key way of redu­cing ser­vice costs. Purcha­sing and regu­larly repla­cing light­bulbs is now a thing of the past.

Inno­va­tive com­pu­ter application

The ZEISS UNIVIEW™ Open Dome marks the first time the com­pany is deli­ve­ring an inno­va­tive and easy-to-use sys­tem that enables high-reso­lu­tion pro­jec­tion of almost any com­pu­ter appli­ca­tion on the dome. The gra­phi­cal repre­sen­ta­tion of these appli­ca­ti­ons will be trans­mit­ted from the source com­pu­ter to the dome in real time and wit­hout any los­ses. The inno­va­tive new tech­no­logy means that con­tent will be pro­jec­ted onto the dome in high visual qua­lity. Until recently this was eit­her not pos­si­ble or neces­si­ta­ted a great deal of effort, and was limi­ted in its qua­lity out­put. This tech­no­logy from ZEISS will allow the pla­ne­ta­rium to run a wider range of pro­grams and react quickly and fle­xi­bly to new rese­arch fin­dings. The cul­tu­ral events will also bene­fit from these more diverse oppor­tu­ni­ties and offer audi­en­ces new experiences.

The new tech­no­logy was instal­led during August and Sep­tem­ber. A second phase will now see the con­ver­sion of the dome thea­ter, which will include new sea­ting so that all visi­tors can enjoy bet­ter vie­w­ing con­di­ti­ons. Work is sche­du­led to be com­ple­ted by mid-December.

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an inter­na­tio­nally lea­ding tech­no­logy enter­prise ope­ra­ting in the fields of optics and opto­elec­tro­nics. In the pre­vious fis­cal year, the ZEISS Group gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue tota­ling more than 6.4 bil­lion euros in its four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets (sta­tus: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2019).

For its cus­to­mers, ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for the life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch, and medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and tre­at­ment in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery. The name ZEISS is also syn­ony­mous with the world’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. There is glo­bal demand for trend­set­ting ZEISS brand pro­ducts such as eye­glass len­ses, camera len­ses and binoculars.

With a port­fo­lio ali­gned with future growth areas like digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Smart Pro­duc­tion and a strong brand, ZEISS is sha­ping the future of tech­no­logy and con­stantly advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted fields with its solu­ti­ons. The company’s signi­fi­cant, sus­tainable invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment lay the foun­da­tion for the suc­cess and con­tin­ued expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket leadership.

With over 31,000 employees, ZEISS is active glo­bally in almost 50 count­ries with around 60 sales and ser­vice com­pa­nies, 30 pro­duc­tion sites and 25 deve­lo­p­ment sites. Foun­ded in 1846 in Jena, the com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest foun­da­ti­ons in Ger­many com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence, is the sole owner of the hol­ding com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.com

Pres­se­kon­takt

Bea­trice Weinberger
Planetarien
+49 3641 64–2335
moc.ssiez@regrebniew.ecirtaeb​