chennai birla planetarium in kotturpuram which has been taking astronomy buffs on a virtual tour of the cosmos for nearly 30 years will be shut for nine months starting august to undergo a comprehensive makeovera new stateoftheart hybrid projection system from germany a special aluminium inner dome from the us and an amphitheatre like seating area have been planned at a cost of rs 10 crore we are likely to shut by the third week of august once the projector systems ordered are shipped it will take nine months for us to get the planetarium ready said p iyamperumal executive director tamil nadu science and technology centrehe said the new system could screen astronomical phenomena which could otherwise be seen from elsewhere in the world in realtime besides the regular shows the system will project images with very high resolution of more than 28 million pixels and at a contrast rate of 1 lakh 1 it thus can project tiny objects with better clarityiyamperumal said the present projection system which has been entertaining for close to 30 years has lower image clarity with a contrast of 10001 we run shows by using slides in the projector we also purchased some computer animation five years back the director said inaugurated on may 11 1988 at the periyar science and technology centre in kotturpuram the planetarium has been the place for many astronomy lovers to experience the outer space an optomechanical projection system from japan with a set of five main projectors had been giving visitors a sense of the night sky solar systems lifecycle of stars comets and several other astronomical phenomena and landmark events in the field of space science including the landing of man on the moon the shows are changed once in six months they are planned designed and the slides for projection are made by the officials at the planetarium a small studio on the premises help in recording and syncing voiceovers with the visualsseveral such shows had been incorporated over the years as and when there are discoveries and developments in space science globally they were projected on a 15mdiameter specially perforated aluminium dome in a theatre with a circular seating area with seven shows a day each for a duration of 40 minutes the theatre has so far seen more than 70 lakh visitors since its inceptionthe new hybrid projection system will have the latest version of a set of five very highend digital carl zeiss projectors especially built for the planetarium even small stars that were not clear in the older system can be seen with better clarity iyamperumal said there are also many builtin libraries abroad from where we can purchase the visuals we want to screen herestaff members who operate the console said the hiend system will be for the long haul the life of the lamp is 20000 hours and we can run as many as 20 shows a day we will be trained to operate and do regular maintenance