Fear of apocalypse was the final ‘push’ for the Eisinga planetarium in 1774

NOS News•today, 12:33

It was the widely shared fear of the end of the world that gave the Frisian amateur astronomer Eise Eisinga the final “push” to build his world-famous planetarium. This is what historian and director of the planetarium Adrie Warmenhoven says, exactly 250 years after Eisinga decided to build the planetarium in his house in Franeker.

The fear of an apocalypse was enormous in 1774, Warmenhoven told Omrop Fryslân. Four planets and the moon were close together that year and according to many, this could mean nothing other than the end of the world.

Warmenhoven: “Eisinga probably had the idea for some time to use his knowledge to build a beautiful planetarium. This was just the push for him to decide to show people once and for all how everything really works. .”

The Eise Eisinga Planetarium is the oldest working planetarium in the world and a popular attraction for tourists. Last year it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. But the history of the beautiful canal house in the city center of Franeker is less known.

“Exactly 250 years ago, a very beautiful planetary conjunction was visible,” says Warmenhoven. This simultaneously led to fear in society. “According to some, the Earth would be thrown into the sun,” said the director.

Eisinga watched all the commotion with a shake of his head. As an amateur astronomer, he had built up a lot of knowledge of the celestial bodies and knew that things would not go that smoothly. At the age of fifteen he was already working on mathematics and astronomy and at the age of seventeen he was predicting solar and lunar eclipses, Warmenhoven explains.

So he also knew that such a conjunction of planets occurs more often and would have no negative consequences. Eisinga wanted to explain this to the general public. He eventually chose to demonstrate this literally and started building a planetarium in his living room in 1774.

Seven years later he finished and opened the planetarium to the public. “Everyone can put it in the agenda that in seven years, in 2031, we will celebrate in a big way that the planetarium has been open for 250 years,” says Warmenhoven.

Yet today’s ‘anniversary’ does not go unnoticed. There is a lecture at the University of Groningen and Omrop Fryslân made the documentary Starry nightwhich will also be shown on NPO 2 next weekend.