Kepler Museum, Astronomy museum in Old Town, Prague, Czech Republic
The Kepler Museum was a small astronomy museum in the house U Francouzské koruny at Karlova 4 in Prague's Old Town, where Johannes Kepler lived during his stay in the city. It opened in 2009 with information panels and displays, including an animation of a snowflake's real growth and a working model of the gear pump Kepler built for Rudolf II's garden fountains. Part of the installation was moved to the National Technical Museum and opened there in spring 2019.
The museum opened on 25 August 2009 in the House at the French Crown, Karlova 4, the Old Town house where Kepler had lived; the date slipped from May because of an uncertain grant, and original Kepler-era objects were dropped over insurance costs. It closed on 31 December 2017 after eight years, and its installation passed to the National Technical Museum, opening there in spring 2019.
The museum's logo shows three circles for Mars, Earth and the Sun, the bodies whose mutual positions Kepler studied while in Prague. Its displays included an animation of real snowflake growth, since Kepler first determined that snowflakes always take a six-sided form.
The Old Town exhibition in Karlova Street closed at the end of 2017 after eight years. Part of it moved to the National Technical Museum in Letná and opened there in spring 2019, though those rooms were judged unsuitable; a further move to the Prague Planetarium was planned for autumn 2022.
The museum's entrance tickets featured the astronomical dial of Prague's Old Town Hall clock, showing the exact time of the visit in several different formats. This detail was a deliberate nod to one of the city's most recognizable landmarks, just a short walk from the original museum site.
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