Bishop Museum’s Jhamandas Watumull Planetarium was the first planetarium in Polynesia. Originally called the Kilolani Planetarium, the Watumull Planetarium has served over six million visitors and students since it opened its doors on December 11, 1961. The planetarium has 70 seats and serves 70,000 people a year. The planetarium focuses on programs about Hawai‘i; a hallmark of its programs is the blending of live and prerecorded elements within each program.

Bishop Museum’s mission is to inspire our community and visitors through the exploration and celebration of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawai‘i and the Pacific. The Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in memory of his wife Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a royal descendant of King Kamehameha I. Today, the Museum thrives as an educational center for the community and is widely regarded as the world’s premier institution for Hawaiian and Pacific research and collections. Its vast collections of more than 25 million objects and specimens represent nine disciplines and include more than 22 million biological specimens, over two million cultural objects, 115,000 historical publications, and one million photographs, films, works of art, audio recordings, and manuscripts. These collections tell the stories of the cultures and biodiversity of Hawai‘i and the Pacific as well as the proud legacy of scholarly research spanning more than 125 years. Bishop Museum proudly serves more than 200,000 visitors each year, including 20,000 children on school visits.