Eise Eisinga Planetarium - Franeker

Who didn't grow up with it?

Back in primary school, you learned a few things about Friesland, (if you didn't live in Friesland); these were the eleven cities, a Calvé peanut butter sandwich for skating, and ..... the Eise Eisinga Planetarium. You had to have been there at least once in your life.

For almost 250 years, the sun, earth, moon and Mercury, Venus and Mars have hung from the ceiling in the Planetarium. In perfect proportion and balance.

The seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, decades and centuries tick by in a continuous cadence, perfectly on time.

The museum is housed in a historic canal house. The oldest working planetarium in the world offers a stunning combination of science, history and craftsmanship.

Eise Eisinga was self-taught in astronomy. He built this planetarium between 1774 and 1781 in his own living room.

Why?

Now we would speak of "fake-news". But at the time, people believed in predictions by people, who believed that the end of times would come for the earth; a collision between planets was foreseen.

With his planetarium, Eisinga was able to show that those predictions were wrong.

With an insane mechanism, simply powered by a pendulum clock and wooden gears, the current position of the planets in our solar system has been displayed with staggering precision for almost 250 years.

September 2023, UNESCO World Heritage status was confirmed for the Planetarium. This brings the tally for unique UNESCO sites in the north of the Netherlands to five!

Visiting the Planetarium

The Planetarium is 'a-once-in-a-lifetime-experiences'. So if you have a visit or holiday planned in the Franeker region, put it on your list. The Planetarium's website provides all the information for visitors.

From LocalGroningen, we are exploring options for a real UNESCO trip, along the various UNESCO sites in the north. More news about this will return to this website.