Akashi · JP
Akashi Municipal Planetarium
The Akashi Municipal Planetarium is a museum of time and space perched directly on the Japan Standard Time meridian — the 135° East longitude line that defines the clock for all of Japan. Its 54-meter clock tower doubles as the official meridian marker, its planetarium dome has been projecting star fields continuously since 1960, and its upper observation floors reveal sweeping panoramas of the Akashi Strait, Awaji Island, and the world's longest suspension bridge.
This is one of Japan's most distinctive science museums: a place where you can literally straddle the line that tells the nation what time it is, watch stars projected by one of the oldest working Zeiss planetarium projectors on Earth, and climb to a tower-top observatory with a 40-centimeter telescope pointing at the real sky.