Listings for: Dunedin > Activities and Attractions > Museums

Perpetual Guardian Planetarium

Travel to the ends of the universe, voyage across the Pacific or look up into the night skies in our new 360 ̊ immersive digital theatre dome. Open now. Bookings essential. Buy tickets online

Dunedin's Night Sky
The Otago Museum’s Perpetual Guardian Planetarium opened to the public in December 2015 as the new southernmost planetarium in the world. The immersive 360 ̊ theatre is the only fully 3D planetarium in Australasia and seats 50. Six shows per day enable visitors to travel across the Pacific Ocean, up into the night sky or to the ends of the universe – all without leaving their seats.

The Perpetual Guardian Planetarium was built to increase engagement with science, nature and culture in Otago and inspire the next generation to take an interest in the world, in line with the Museum’s mission.
The incredible night skies over Dunedin and Otago were another motivating factor in its creation. The aurora australis is frequently visible from within the city limits, and initiatives are in place to make Dunedin the world’s largest ‘dark sky city’ to capitalise on its naturally stellar skies. One of the shows on offer is The Sky Tonight, a live presentation that takes visitors on a virtual tour of what they can see in the sky over Dunedin on the night of their visit. Viewers will learn about stars, constellations, deep sky objects and the best ways to view them that very evening. The shows are produced by the Museum’s in-house planetarium team, ensuring the creation of responsive, locally-relevant content. The planetarium’s Digistar 5 system can take visitors to more than just space, however – it can offer a window into the deepest trenches of the ocean or the structure of an atom.