Aug. 2: The Guwahati Planetarium will introduce two new shows for its visitors, in English and Assamese.

Officials of the planetarium said the two new shows—The Search for Light: Are we Alone and Journey to the Stars — will give a new insight to the audience about the vast space with countless celestial bodies constantly moving in their orbits. The duration of each show will be 35 minutes.

For the benefit of the audience the shows will be screened in both Assamese and English.

“We have already collected the English version of the shows and we are working on the Assamese versions. As soon as the Assamese version is ready, the shows will be screened for the visitors,” a senior official of the planetarium said.

The present show, Cosmic Collision, has been running for more than six months now, since the modernisation of the planetarium.

At present the planetarium has five shows a day — 11am, 12pm, 1.30pm, 3pm and 4pm.

The official said some local elements like information about the Guwahati sky will be added to the shows to make the visitors aware of the celestial bodies seen in the sky from the city.

Guwahati Planetarium is a kind of astronomical research centre in the state and uses the Japanese Goto GX instrument.

Besides, GX starfield projector, 60 special-effects projectors, and the sky theatre’s sound system are some of the hardware used and Goto Inc supplies the software for the show. Besides its daily shows, the planetarium regularly organises seminars, workshops and conferences for the astronomy fraternity.

The official said the planetarium is getting a unique hybrid planetarium projection system, the first-of-its-kind in the entire Northeast.

“Besides, we are also going to introduce a mobile taramandal shortly, with which we will screen similar shows (as shown in the Guwahati planetarium) to the people in rural areas. The mobile taramandal will be an inflatable dome, which could be carried from one place to another and around 30 to 40 people can be accommodated inside it to enjoy the shows,” he said.

The official also said the process for setting up an astronomy gallery inside the planetarium was under way.

The state science and technology department has sanctioned nearly Rs 38 lakh to set up the gallery and the mobile taramandal along with an astro van.