Boasting one of the largest sizes among private planetariums, Songam Space celebrates its 11th anniversary since it was established in 2007. Located on the hillside of Gyemyeongsan Mountain, Songam Space is divided into four areas of the Space Center that houses the planetarium and Challenger Learning Center, Albireo cable car that carries visitors, the observatory that connects the earth and space, and Star House for relaxation of those who have come to see stars in the night sky.

As you walk past the lawn plaza along the stroll path, you reach the Space Center built as a large dome. Continue following a hallway with fluorescent coloring under dark lights, which gives you a vibe of the inside of a spaceship, you will find the Challenger Learning Center, an education center that offers a planetarium experience having reproduced an actual night sky as well as an indirect space exploration experience.

Once you exit from the Space Center and go up to its right, there is a restaurant, a café called “Namu,” and Star House, which takes care of the nights of visitors who have come here at late hours.

As you walk out of the main gate of the Space Center, you see a cable car platform over the circular plaza. Albireo, the name of the cable car, runs at every hour after 1 PM. You can enjoy the view of Bukhansan Mountain and Saja Rock far away on your way up to the observatory in the cable car. As you step out of the cable car and enter the observatory, robots greet you with exciting music.

Here, you can enjoy a performance by the robots and experience a 50-minute educational program on space while stories about the galaxy are told in the video lecture room. If you walk up to the auxiliary observation room, direct observation of the sun is possible. A simple experiment that uses paper is conducted to see how strong sunlight is, and the setup enables each person in the audience to observe the sun through telescopes.

Then, move to the main observation room to find a gigantic telescope, which was manufactured by domestic technology. On sunny days, it can observe Venus even during the day and, at night, all of the planets and constellations may be observed. On a cloudy day when observation is not possible, let’s go to the underground space where a replacement program is prepared for observation of LED stars and planets.

Written and photos by Ko Yeon-joo

Website http://www.starsvalley.com/

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