The planetarium brings the stars from the sky!

The planetarium is located in one of the most beautiful spots in the district town of Bad Salzungen, in a very idyllic setting by the Burgsee lake, directly at the transition to Rathenaupark.

Up to 50 guests can be comfortably seated under the 8 m dome to attend the varied and interesting program.

The history of the planetarium begins in the 1930s. After the opening of the world's first planetarium in Jena almost 100 years ago, the military also began to use planetariums for training purposes. Zeiss-Werke in Jena was commissioned to build a new planetarium, which had to fulfill three important conditions:
The room size should correspond to the capacity of a group of 30 to 40 people, the operation should be centralized and fully mechanical (i.e. a lecturer who can point individually and quickly at the sky at different places and times and the most important point: the brilliance of the stars and their "locations" should be absolutely identical to reality. However, the Second World War prevented this from being realized. When SAG was transformed into VEB Carl-Zeiss-Jena after the war, the design for the ZKP 1 projector was taken out of the drawer and the first three projectors of this model series were produced in 1952. The projector in the Bad Salzungen Planetarium is exactly THE one that was exhibited at the first Leipzig Autumn Fair after the Second World War. We are happy and proud to own this very ZKP 1, which marked the beginning of a fascinating history of planetarium production in Thuringia, and to preserve it for the public.
The Bad Salzungen Planetarium was opened in October 1984. At the time, it was part of the "Station for Young Technicians and Naturalists". In the first seven years, over 50,000 visitors were counted. In 1991, the district took over the planetarium, which has been part of the Wartburg District Adult Education Center since 1996. In 1998/99, the building was extensively renovated and refurbished.

In 2022, a new full-dome digital projector was installed, enabling sensational programs. However, the old ZKP 1 will continue to be used in full alongside the state-of-the-art LASER projection. Our programs thus offer an extraordinary variety of high quality.

Visit our planetarium and see for yourself!