M.P. Birla Planetarium

Address: Jawaharlal Nehru Road, opposite Victoria Memorial 
Timing: Tuesday-Sunday; closed the first Thursday of each month
Opened in 1962 and formally inaugurated by Nehru in 1963, the planetarium’s circular design draws on the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi, a deliberate indigenous form set among the British neoclassical buildings nearby. Commonly cited as Asia’s largest planetarium, it seats around 680 beneath a 23-25 metre dome. The original Zeiss projector ran for roughly 100,000 hours before a 2017 renovation introduced a hybrid optical-digital system. Shows run in Bengali, Hindi and English.