The Baia Mare Astronomical Complex, located in the northern Romania city, has opened a planetarium for the visually impaired, the first such one in the country.

The planetarium follows on the 2016 project of multi-sensorial exhibition dedicated to the blind and those with sight deficiencies. It is however much wider in scope, and the general public can experiment with it as well.

The planetarium lays out the sky in a three dimensional perspective and comes with an audio guide explaining visitors what they are experiencing. It is made up of two cupulas, one representing the winter sky, the other the summer sky. Visitors sit in a chair and touch the sky, while receiving audio explanations, which can also be downloaded as a phone app.

Some 100 people, most of them visually impaired, came at the opening of the planetarium to visit it.

The Baia Mare planetarium prepared six other similar sky reproductions to be sent to planetariums in Bârlad, Galați, Constanța, Craiova, Bucharest and at the Transylvania Ethnography Museum in Cluj.

The project of the planetarium for the visually impaired was carried out with the help of volunteers from the Team for Youth Baia Mare association and from high schools in the city.

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