Robert Lipper, Sailboat

North Shore

Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium

Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium

The elegant Vanderbilt Museum's historic mansion is the former home of William Kissam Vanderbilt II, great grandson of Commodore Cornelius. The 43 acre estate overlooks Northport Harbor and the L.I. Sound. Visitors take guided tours of the mansion or may wander through the museum's many exhibits on their own. The Vanderbilt museum also has a 238 seat state of the art planetarium which features 3 different shows on weekends and holidays. It is one of the largest and best-equipped in the United States. In addition to its domed theater where Sky shows recreate celestial events, there is also an Observatory with a professional-grade 16-inch Cassegrainian reflecting telescope through which visitors may scan the real sky on clear evenings, or, during the day, watch actual sunspots and solar prominences as transmitted live to a television monitor in the Planetarium lobby. The 60-foot Sky Theater houses a customized four ton Goto projection instrument which reproduces the heavenly bodies: sun, moo, planets, and stars as well as the imaginary coordinate lines traditionally used to map the heavens. It can simulate the heavens at any moment in time from the distant past to the future, as they appeared from any place on Earth. The projector can show more than 11,3000 stars - about the same number of stars visible in the night sky under perfect atmospheric conditions. Open year round.

Related categories: Attractions , Mansions/Museums/Historical Sites

Contact Information


 180 Little Neck Road [show map]
Centerport, NY 11721
Suffolk County
Region: North Shore

Phone: (631) 854-5555
Fax: (631) 854-5091
Website: www.vanderbiltmuseum.org

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