The London Planetarium, next to Madame Tussaud's on Baker Street, closed in May 2006, before being made into a venue for an animated film show about celebrities.

Native and adopted Londoners may remember entering the circular auditorium to marvel at the constellations beamed onto the dome's roof from a central dumbbell-shaped projector.

In recent years, the planetarium was a shadow of its former self, playing a Disneydeveloped show based on the movie "Treasure Planet," that epitomized the trend toward dumbing down.

The magic is back — although you have to travel farther out in London's solar system to find it, near the National Maritime Museum. On Friday, the 120-seat Peter Harrison Planetarium opened at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

It is part of a five-year, $31.7 million redevelopment at the Wren-designed Flamsteed House, built in 1675-76. There are galleries for astronomy and the origin of Greenwich Mean Time, the starting point for world time zones.

The planetarium lies under a bronze cone, a new landmark, slanted in harmony with Greenwich's latitude (51.5 degrees) and pointing directly to the Pole Star.