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Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
Technology trivia
- Thread starter GTP1960
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Agree. Planetarium projector.
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Definitely. These cost a fortune... could be programmed to show the night sky back in time too.
OP
GTP1960
Jedi Knight
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Exactly right!
it is a Carl Zeiss mechanical planetarium projector (circa 1969).
It is able to accurately display a model of the nights sky from any time, past, present or future, oriented from any point on earth. Truly an engineering marvel.
.......today a computerized device the size of a toaster can do a comparable job.
it is a Carl Zeiss mechanical planetarium projector (circa 1969).
It is able to accurately display a model of the nights sky from any time, past, present or future, oriented from any point on earth. Truly an engineering marvel.
.......today a computerized device the size of a toaster can do a comparable job.
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They had one at the universitie's museum in the town I grew up in. Used to enjoy the show when I was a kid. Got interested in Astronomy, finally got the bigger (not huge 90mm) refractor scope I always wanted. But now my neighborhood is both mature (trees) and commercialized not so far away,so I don't enjoy it or use it as much as I thought I would.
PC
Obi Wan
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Back in the eighties, I went to a planetarium show at a small university. The projectionist explained how incredibly expensive they were to buy and that there was no way their little school could afford such a marvelous machine. So they built it themselves!, mostly out of parts scavenged form surplus aircraft gun cameras.
Yeah, I just checked their website. they've grown and apparently so has their funding. Nowadays they have one of those commercially built toasters.
Probably works a lot better. But nowhere near as cool.
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Grew up with access to Buhl Planetarium, in Pittsburgh. Was awestruck by both the show and that clockwork thing projecting it. They have progressed. :thumbsup:
Silverghost
Yoda
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Same here Doc! Many school field trips there. And the dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.