News › ZEISS • New pla­ne­ta­rium projector

ZEISS ASTERION – A Star Pro­jec­tor for the Digi­tal Age

ZEISS is laun­ching a new pla­ne­ta­rium pro­jec­tor. The all-new ZEISS ASTERION is an opto­me­cha­ni­cal com­po­nent desi­gned to be used with a digi­tal dome pro­jec­tion sys­tem for Hybrid Pla­ne­ta­ri­ums. The pro­jec­tor fea­tures a new design, with a Star Ball that is only as big as a medi­cine ball. It is the world’s smal­lest and is sui­ta­ble for use in pla­ne­ta­ri­ums with small and medium-sized domes (with a dia­me­ter from 8 m to 18 m) – and it gene­ra­tes the brigh­test night sky yet.

Even in the digi­tal age, it is only pos­si­ble to recreate a rea­li­stic night sky using an opto­me­cha­ni­cal pro­jec­tor. The ZEISS ASTERION crea­tes stars that are bright and clear, appearing as set points and in their natu­ral bright­ness gra­da­tion. It can also pro­ject a very rea­li­stic Milky Way uti­li­zing the data of the Gaia space mis­sion. And it does all this in a qua­lity that no digi­tal pro­jec­tor can match. ZEISS ASTERION is con­trol­led tog­e­ther and in sync with the digi­tal repre­sen­ta­ti­ons of the sky. This allows, for ins­tance, the ana­log star pro­jec­tion and the con­stel­la­tion figu­res and astro­no­mical coor­di­na­tes that digi­tally fade in to blend with one another.

»These days, pla­ne­ta­ri­ums that want to con­ti­nue inspi­ring their visi­tors are loo­king for a pro­jec­tor that is incre­di­bly small yet still capa­ble of gene­ra­ting very bright stars, and is eco­no­mical,« says Mar­tin Kraus, Head of ZEISS Pla­ne­ta­ri­ums. “So, ZEISS nee­ded to minia­tu­rize its high-tech optics. Pla­ne­ta­ri­ums won’t just app­re­ciate how much space this pro­jec­tor saves. The ZEISS ASTERION con­su­mes less energy (just 300 watts) than any other pla­ne­ta­rium pro­jec­tor in the world. Long-las­ting LED light sources mean you’ll never once need to replace pro­jec­tor bulbs!”

In the digi­tal age, no modern pla­ne­ta­rium can do wit­hout digi­tal video pro­jec­tion. For many pla­ne­ta­ri­ums, howe­ver, this means having to forego an inspi­ring night sky, the kind you’ll almost only see high up in the moun­ta­ins on a clear night, far from any and all dis­trac­tions. Accor­ding to Mr. Kraus, tiny, bright points of light like the stars against a pitch-dark sky have pla­ced great demands on digi­tal tech­no­logy for the foreseeable.

Cut­ting-edge tech­no­lo­gies like com­pu­ter-assis­ted simu­la­ti­ons and gene­ra­tive pro­duc­tion pro­ces­ses such as adap­tive manu­fac­tu­ring allow ZEISS to offer a minia­tu­ri­zed opto­me­cha­ni­cal pla­ne­ta­rium pro­jec­tor that meets all the demands of the digi­tal age. »We are con­fi­dent that the pro­jec­tor will pique the curio­sity of both our cus­to­mers and the visi­tors that expe­ri­ence its power in the pla­ne­ta­rium,« says Mr. Kraus.

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.

Press Cont­act

​Gud­run Vogel
Planetarien
+49 3641 64–2770
moc.ssiez@legov.nurdug​

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at: www.zeiss.com