The Copernican Revolution

Why did Nicolaus Copernicus have good eyesight? What would the world look like without its revolution? Is Jan Matejko's painting “The Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversation with God” consistent with history? We invite you to a new show at the Planetarium, which will explain what the “Copernican coup” was and what revolution in science we can still expect.

When Nicolaus Copernicus looked at the sky 500 years ago, his eye must have been enough for observation. He used special instruments — a quadrant, a wooden paralactic triangle and an armillary sphere. Today we observe the night sky through huge telescopes, we can check the constellations in the application on our smartphone, and we use planetariums to image the sky.

We owe all this to the smaller and greater advances that are being made in science. Those that turned our knowledge of the world upside down are today called Copernican upheavals or scientific revolutions. The thought of the Polish astronomer — placing the Sun at the center of our planetary system — took many years to officially become the universally recognized basis of modern science.

The Copernican Revolution is a show prepared on the occasion of the celebration of the 550th birthday of the Polish astronomer. It begins with a simple sky show and a reconstruction of the old model of Ptolemy, to later depict the model proposed by the Polish astronomer. With the eye of a detective, we will look at the painting “The Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversation with God” by Jan Matejko and we will take a close look at the Solar System to consider what secrets it hides from us and what else remains to be discovered by modern “Copernicus”.

The Copernican Revolution is a show about the history of astronomy and the breakthrough made by Nicolaus Copernicus. It focuses on the description of the observed objects and phenomena. It is conducted live and partially improvised, therefore the translation into English on headphones is not literal.