The Planetarium Room is the centrepiece of the Eise Eisinga Planetarium. The model of the sun with the 6 planets turning around it still functions. This makes it the oldest working planetarium in the world. During your visit, you will be given plenty of information in the Planet Room. This explanation will take about 15 minutes. You can discover the rest of the museum, including the radar on your own.

The Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium is officially UNESCO world heritage. This means that the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO recognizes the exceptional universal value of this impressively large model of our solar system, which was made between 1774 and 1781 by the Frisian wool manufacturer and amateur astronomer Eise Eisinga.

The Eisinga Planetarium provides a current and realistic picture of the positions of the sun, moon, earth and the five other planets that were known at the time. The mechanism, which is built into the ceiling of Eisinga's living room and bedroom, consists of simple but robust parts, such as wooden hoops and discs, and iron pins. The whole thing is controlled by one single movement. The instrument still has the function that Eisinga had in mind at the time. It has been used for almost 250 years to explain to visitors the workings of our solar system. This makes it the oldest working planetarium in the world.

Exceptional scientific heritage
ICOMOS, the international advisory body for UNESCO World Heritage, concludes in its report that the Eisinga Planetarium is of 'outstanding universal value' - a crucial condition for obtaining World Heritage status. 'The Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium is an excellent example of a technological ensemble that shows a moving scale model of the solar system as it was known at the end of the eighteenth century. It clearly illustrates a special moment in the history of science and in the understanding of the heliocentric model of the solar system.”

The Eisinga Planetarium is the thirteenth World Heritage Site in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Three of them are located - completely or partially - in the province of Fryslân.

Unique and irreplaceable
World Heritage is considered unique and irreplaceable. A place on the World Heritage List therefore entails the obligation to preserve the heritage for future generations. In addition to the international protection that a heritage receives through inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List, this status also promotes understanding between cultures.