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77-630: The Yorkshire Planetarium was a planetarium in the grounds of Harewood House , near Leeds , West Yorkshire , England , from May 2007 until October 2009. The Yorkshire Planetarium organisation announced that it was laying plans for a permanent base in Bradford and until that was developed it would tour various locations during the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The planetarium at Harewood consisted of three linked 16-metre (52 ft) geodesic domes designed by Amelia Y'Mech, one of which one

154-580: A clockwork mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre, and with a planet at the end of each of a series of arms. The Antikythera mechanism , discovered in 1901 in a wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in the Mediterranean Sea, exhibited the diurnal motions of the Sun , Moon , and the five planets known to the ancient Greeks . It has been dated between 205 to 87 BC. The mechanism

231-475: A star ball , slide projector , video , fulldome projector systems, and lasers. Typical systems can be set to simulate the sky at any point in time, past or present, and often to depict the night sky as it would appear from any point of latitude on Earth. Planetaria range in size from the 37 meter dome in St. Petersburg, Russia (called "Planetarium No 1") to three-meter inflatable portable domes where attendees sit on

308-425: A bright image projected on one side of the dome will tend to reflect light across to the opposite side, "lifting" the black level there and so making the whole image look less realistic. Since traditional planetarium shows consisted mainly of small points of light (i.e., stars) on a black background, this was not a significant issue, but it became an issue as digital projection systems started to fill large portions of

385-522: A certain amount of hiking in order to visit them. A census of all permanent human orreries has been initiated by the French group F-HOU with a new effort to study their impact for education in schools. A map of known human orreries is available. A normal mechanical clock could be used to produce an extremely simple orrery to demonstrate the principle, with the Sun in the centre, Earth on the minute hand and Jupiter on

462-526: A far greater selection of stars. Additional projectors can be added to show twilight around the outside of the screen (complete with city or country scenes) as well as the Milky Way . Others add coordinate lines and constellations , photographic slides, laser displays, and other images. Each planet is projected by a sharply focused spotlight that makes a spot of light on the dome. Planet projectors must have gearing to move their positioning and thereby simulate

539-406: A favoured "sweet spot" for optimum viewing, centrally about a third of the way up the dome from the lowest point. Tilted domes generally have seating arranged stadium-style in straight, tiered rows; horizontal domes usually have seats in circular rows, arranged in concentric (facing center) or epicentric (facing front) arrays. Planetaria occasionally include controls such as buttons or joysticks in

616-565: A heliocentric planetary machine which he had built while living in Paris between 1665 and 1681. He calculated the gear trains needed to represent a year of 365.242 days, and used that to produce the cycles of the principal planets. Joseph Wright 's painting A Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery ( c.  1766 ), which hangs in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery , depicts a group listening to

693-523: A hollow ball with a light inside, and a pinhole for each star, hence the name "star ball". With some of the brightest stars (e.g. Sirius , Canopus , Vega ), the hole must be so big to let enough light through that there must be a small lens in the hole to focus the light to a sharp point on the dome. In later and modern planetarium star balls, the individual bright stars often have individual projectors, shaped like small hand-held torches, with focusing lenses for individual bright stars. Contact breakers prevent

770-480: A lecture by a natural philosopher . The Sun in a brass orrery provides the only light in the room. The orrery depicted in the painting has rings, which give it an appearance similar to that of an armillary sphere . The demonstration was thereby able to depict eclipses . To put this in chronological context, in 1762 John Harrison 's marine chronometer first enabled accurate measurement of longitude . In 1766, astronomer Johann Daniel Titius first demonstrated that

847-766: A lot of attention. Next Zeiss planetariums were opened in Rome (1928, in Aula Ottagona , part of the Baths of Diocletian ), Chicago (1930), Osaka (1937, in the Osaka City Electricity Science Museum ). When Germany was divided into East and West Germany after the war, the Zeiss firm was also split. Part remained in its traditional headquarters at Jena , in East Germany , and part migrated to West Germany . The designer of

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924-472: A mid-size audio-visual firm on Long Island . About thirty canned programs were created for various grade levels and the public, while operators could create their own or run the planetarium live. Purchasers of the Apollo were given their choice of two canned shows, and could purchase more. A few hundred were sold, but in the late 1970s Viewlex went bankrupt for reasons unrelated to the planetarium business. During

1001-499: A planetary equatorium in his Theorica Planetarum , and included instructions on how to build one. The Globe of Gottorf built around 1650 had constellations painted on the inside. These devices would today usually be referred to as orreries (named for the Earl of Orrery ). In fact, many planetariums today have projection orreries, which project onto the dome the Solar System (including

1078-408: A resolution that approaches the limit of human visual acuity . LCD projectors have fundamental limits on their ability to project true black as well as light, which has tended to limit their use in planetaria. LCOS and modified LCOS projectors have improved on LCD contrast ratios while also eliminating the "screen door" effect of small gaps between LCD pixels. "Dark chip" DLP projectors improve on

1155-517: A room, projecting images onto the white surface of a hemisphere. In August 1923, the first (Model I) Zeiss planetarium projected images of the night sky onto the white plaster lining of a 16 m hemispherical concrete dome, erected on the roof of the Zeiss works. The first official public showing was at the Deutsches Museum in Munich on October 21, 1923. Zeiss Planetarium became popular, and attracted

1232-505: A show because they allow simulation of the view from any point in space, not only the Earth-bound view which we are most familiar with. This new virtual reality capability to travel through the universe provides important educational benefits because it vividly conveys that space has depth, helping audiences to leave behind the ancient misconception that the stars are stuck on the inside of a giant celestial sphere and instead to understand

1309-448: A star ball to address some of their limitations. Digital planetarium manufacturers claim reduced maintenance costs and increased reliability from such systems compared with traditional "star balls" on the grounds that they employ few moving parts and do not generally require synchronisation of movement across the dome between several separate systems. Some planetariums mix both traditional opto-mechanical projection and digital technologies on

1386-478: Is a mechanical model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons , usually according to the heliocentric model . It may also represent the relative sizes of these bodies; however, since accurate scaling is often not practical due to the actual large ratio differences, it may use a scaled-down approximation. The Greeks had working planetaria , but

1463-472: Is considered one of the first orreries. It was geocentric and used as a mechanical calculator to calculate astronomical positions. Cicero , the Roman philosopher and politician writing in the first century BC, has references describing planetary mechanical models. According to him, the Greek polymaths Thales and Posidonius both constructed a device modeling celestial motion. In 1348, Giovanni Dondi built

1540-505: Is in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum . The Eisinga Planetarium built by a wool carder named Eise Eisinga in his own living room, in the small city of Franeker in Friesland , is in fact an orrery. It was constructed between 1774 and 1781. The base of the model faces down from the ceiling of the room, with most of the mechanical works in the space above the ceiling. It is driven by

1617-399: Is sometimes used generically to describe other devices which illustrate the Solar System , such as a computer simulation or an orrery . Planetarium software refers to a software application that renders a three-dimensional image of the sky onto a two-dimensional computer screen, or in a virtual reality headset for a 3D representation. The term planetarian is used to describe a member of

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1694-574: The California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park , San Francisco , which operated 1952–2003. The Korkosz brothers built a large projector for the Boston Museum of Science , which was unique in being the first (and for a very long time only) planetarium to project the planet Uranus . Most planetariums ignore Uranus as being at best marginally visible to the naked eye. A great boost to

1771-633: The Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl observatory of the University of Heidelberg , on a new and novel design, inspired by Wallace W. Atwood 's work at the Chicago Academy of Sciences and by the ideas of Walther Bauersfeld and Rudolf Straubel at Zeiss . The result was a planetarium design which would generate all the necessary movements of the stars and planets inside the optical projector, and would be mounted centrally in

1848-480: The Sun and planets up to Saturn ) in their regular orbital paths. In 1229, following the conclusion of the Fifth Crusade , Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen brought back a tent with scattered holes representing stars or planets . The device was operated internally with a spinnable table that rotated the tent. The small size of typical 18th century orreries limited their impact, and towards

1925-503: The 1970s, the OmniMax movie system (now known as IMAX Dome) was conceived to operate on planetarium screens. More recently, some planetariums have re-branded themselves as dome theaters , with broader offerings including wide-screen or "wraparound" films, fulldome video , and laser shows that combine music with laser-drawn patterns. Learning Technologies Inc. in Massachusetts offered

2002-539: The Moon around the Earth. In one orrery, these three motions could be mounted on a common table, separately using the central spindle as a prime mover. All orreries are planetariums . The term orrery has only existed since 1714. A grand orrery is one that includes the outer planets known at the time of its construction. The word planetarium has shifted meaning, and now usually refers to hemispherical theatres in which images of

2079-456: The Moon, and the Sun is called a tellurion or tellurium, and one which only includes the Earth and the Moon is a lunarium . A jovilabe is a model of Jupiter and its moons. A planetarium will show the orbital period of each planet and the rotation rate , as shown in the table above. A tellurion will show the Earth with the Moon revolving around the Sun. It will use the angle of inclination of

2156-515: The Regional Development Fund in April 2008. The main attraction was the 12-metre (39 ft) diameter planetarium dome. There were guided tours of the sky by a live astronomer in the dark dome. Stars and planets were projected onto a negative pressure screen inside the dome by a Carl Zeiss ZKP4 star projector . This enabled visitors to gaze at the stars in a projection of the sky without

2233-448: The Sun as a planet, and with Mercury and Venus revolving around the Sun as its moons . At the court of William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel two complicated astronomic clocks were built in 1561 and 1563–1568. These use four sides to show the ecliptical positions of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, Sun and Dragon (Nodes of the Moon) according to Ptolemy , a calendar,

2310-423: The Sun in 0.24 of an Earth year, while Phobos and Deimos orbit Mars in a similar 4:1 time ratio. Planetarium operators wishing to show this have placed a red cap on the Sun (to make it resemble Mars) and turned off all the planets but Mercury and Earth. Similar approximations can be used to show Pluto and its five moons. Shoemaker John Fulton of Fenwick, Ayrshire , built three between 1823 and 1833. The last

2387-501: The Western teaching of a geocentric universe in which the Sun revolved daily around the Earth . He observed that some Greek philosophers such as Aristarchus of Samos had proposed a heliocentric universe. This simplified the apparent epicyclic motions of the planets, making it feasible to represent the planets' paths as simple circles. This could be modeled by the use of gears. Tycho Brahe 's improved instruments made precise observations of

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2464-474: The arm rests of seats to allow audience feedback that influences the show in real time . Often around the edge of the dome (the "cove") are: Traditionally, planetariums needed many incandescent lamps around the cove of the dome to help audience entry and exit, to simulate sunrise and sunset , and to provide working light for dome cleaning. More recently, solid-state LED lighting has become available that significantly decreases power consumption and reduces

2541-460: The celebrated instrument maker John Rowley of London to make a copy for Prince Eugene of Savoy . Rowley was commissioned to make another copy for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery , from which the device took its name in English. This model was presented to Charles' son John, later the 5th Earl of Cork and 5th Earl of Orrery . Independently, Christiaan Huygens published in 1703 details of

2618-417: The dome with bright objects (e.g., large images of the sun in context). For this reason, modern planetarium domes are often not painted white but rather a mid grey colour, reducing reflection to perhaps 35-50%. This increases the perceived level of contrast. A major challenge in dome construction is to make seams as invisible as possible. Painting a dome after installation is a major task, and if done properly,

2695-448: The dome) in every elementary school in Japan. Phillip Stern, as former lecturer at New York City 's Hayden Planetarium , had the idea of creating a small planetarium which could be programmed. His Apollo model was introduced in 1967 with a plastic program board, recorded lecture, and film strip. Unable to pay for this himself, Stern became the head of the planetarium division of Viewlex ,

2772-438: The end of that century a number of educators attempted to create a larger sized version. The efforts of Adam Walker (1730–1821) and his sons are noteworthy in their attempts to fuse theatrical illusions with education. Walker's Eidouranion was the heart of his public lectures or theatrical presentations. Walker's son describes this "Elaborate Machine" as "twenty feet high, and twenty-seven in diameter: it stands vertically before

2849-536: The equator from the table above to show how it rotates around its own axis. It will show the Earth's Moon, rotating around the Earth. A lunarium is designed to show the complex motions of the Moon as it revolves around the Earth. Orreries are usually not built to scale . Human orreries, where humans move about as the planets, have also been constructed, but most are temporary. There is a permanent human orrery at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland , which has

2926-571: The first digital planetarium projector displaying computer graphics ( Hansen planetarium , Salt Lake City, Utah)—the Digistar I projector used a vector graphics system to display starfields as well as line art . This gives the operator great flexibility in showing not only the modern night sky as visible from Earth , but as visible from points far distant in space and time. The newest generations of planetarium projectors, beginning with Digistar 3 , offer fulldome video technology. This allows for

3003-477: The first easily portable planetarium in 1977. Philip Sadler designed this patented system which projected stars, constellation figures from many mythologies , celestial coordinate systems, and much else, from removable cylinders (Viewlex and others followed with their own portable versions). When Germany reunified in 1989, the two Zeiss firms did likewise, and expanded their offerings to cover many different size domes. In 1983, Evans & Sutherland installed

3080-399: The first known clock driven mechanism of the system. It displays the ecliptic position of the Moon, Sun, Mercury , Venus , Mars , Jupiter and Saturn according to the complicated geocentric Ptolemaic planetary theories. The clock itself is lost, but Dondi left a complete description of its astronomic gear trains . As late as 1650, P. Schirleus built a geocentric planetarium with

3157-456: The first modern example was produced c.  1712 by John Rowley. He named it "orrery" for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (in County Cork , Ireland). The plaque on it reads "Orrery invented by Graham 1700 improved by Rowley and presented by him to John [sic] Earl of Orrery after whom it was named at the suggestion of Richard Steele ." Orreries are typically driven by

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3234-598: The first planetariums for Zeiss, Walther Bauersfeld , also migrated to West Germany with the other members of the Zeiss management team. There he remained on the Zeiss West management team until his death in 1959. The West German firm resumed making large planetariums in 1954, and the East German firm started making small planetariums a few years later. Meanwhile, the lack of planetarium manufacturers had led to several attempts at construction of unique models, such as one built by

3311-855: The floor. The largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere is the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium at Liberty Science Center in New Jersey , its dome measuring 27 meters in diameter. The Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India is the largest by seating capacity, having 630 seats. In North America, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City has the greatest number of seats, at 423. The term planetarium

3388-411: The hindrance of light pollution and cloud cover while they lay on comfortable mats or deck chairs. Planetarium A dominant feature of most planetariums is the large dome -shaped projection screen onto which scenes of stars , planets , and other celestial objects can be made to appear and move realistically to simulate their motion. The projection can be created in various ways, such as

3465-455: The horizon of the dome are arranged to blend together seamlessly. Digital projection systems all work by creating the image of the night sky as a large array of pixels . Generally speaking, the more pixels a system can display, the better the viewing experience. While the first generation of digital projectors were unable to generate enough pixels to match the image quality of the best traditional "star ball" projectors, high-end systems now offer

3542-457: The hour hand; Earth would make 12 revolutions around the Sun for every 1 revolution of Jupiter. As Jupiter's actual year is 11.86 Earth years long, the model would lose accuracy rapidly. Many planetariums have a projection orrery , which projects onto the dome of the planetarium a Sun with either dots or small images of the planets. These usually are limited to the planets from Mercury to Saturn, although some include Uranus. The light sources for

3619-603: The maintenance requirement as lamps no longer have to be changed on a regular basis. The world's largest mechanical planetarium is located in Monico, Wisconsin. The Kovac Planetarium . It is 22 feet in diameter and weighs two tons. The globe is made of wood and is driven with a variable speed motor controller. This is the largest mechanical planetarium in the world, larger than the Atwood Globe in Chicago (15 feet in diameter) and one third

3696-520: The mean distance between Sun and Earth, which is 1.496 × 10 km (93 × 10 miles). The Derby Orrery does not show mean distance, but demonstrated the relative planetary movements. The Eisinga Planetarium was built from 1774 to 1781 by Eise Eisinga in his home in Franeker , in the Netherlands. It displays the planets across the width of a room's ceiling, and has been in operation almost continually since it

3773-528: The mean distance of each planet from the Sun could be represented by the following progression: 4 + 0 10 , 4 + 3 10 , 4 + 6 10 , 4 + 12 10 , 4 + 24 10 , . . . {\displaystyle {\frac {4+0}{10}},{\frac {4+3}{10}},{\frac {4+6}{10}},{\frac {4+12}{10}},{\frac {4+24}{10}},...} That is, 0.4, 0.7, 1.0, 1.6, 2.8, ... The numbers refer to astronomical units ,

3850-408: The night sky are projected onto an overhead surface. Orreries can range widely in size from hand-held to room-sized. An orrery is used to demonstrate the motion of the planets, while a mechanical device used to predict eclipses and transits is called an astrarium . An orrery should properly include the Sun, the Earth and the Moon (plus optionally other planets). A model that only includes the Earth,

3927-402: The night sky. Finally, in most traditional projectors the various overlaid projection systems are incapable of proper occultation . This means that a planet image projected on top of a star field (for example) will still show the stars shining through the planet image, degrading the quality of the viewing experience. For related reasons, some planetariums show stars below the horizon projecting on

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4004-535: The planets are projected onto mirrors which are geared to a motor which drives the images on the dome. Typically the Earth will circle the Sun in one minute, while the other planets will complete an orbit in time periods proportional to their actual motion. Thus Venus, which takes 224.7 days to orbit the Sun, will take 37 seconds to complete an orbit on an orrery, and Jupiter will take 11 minutes, 52 seconds. Some planetariums have taken advantage of this to use orreries to simulate planets and their moons. Thus Mercury orbits

4081-402: The planets' movements. These can be of these types:- Despite offering a good viewer experience, traditional star ball projectors suffer several inherent limitations. From a practical point of view, the low light levels require several minutes for the audience to "dark adapt" its eyesight. "Star ball" projection is limited in education terms by its inability to move beyond an Earth-bound view of

4158-561: The popularity of the planetarium worldwide was provided by the Space Race of the 1950s and 60s when fears that the United States might miss out on the opportunities of the new frontier in space stimulated a massive program to install over 1,200 planetariums in U.S. high schools. Armand Spitz recognized that there was a viable market for small inexpensive planetaria. His first model, the Spitz A,

4235-502: The professional staff of a planetarium. The ancient Greek polymath Archimedes is attributed with creating a primitive planetarium device that could predict the movements of the Sun and the Moon and the planets. The discovery of the Antikythera mechanism proved that such devices already existed during antiquity , though likely after Archimedes' lifetime. Campanus of Novara described

4312-423: The projection of any image. Planetarium domes range in size from 3 to 35 m in diameter , accommodating from 1 to 500 people. They can be permanent or portable, depending on the application. The realism of the viewing experience in a planetarium depends significantly on the dynamic range of the image, i.e., the contrast between dark and light. This can be a challenge in any domed projection environment, because

4389-421: The projectors from projecting below the "horizon". The star ball is usually mounted so it can rotate as a whole to simulate the Earth's daily rotation, and to change the simulated latitude on Earth. There is also usually a means of rotating to produce the effect of precession of the equinoxes . Often, one such ball is attached at its south ecliptic pole. In that case, the view cannot go so far south that any of

4466-499: The resulting blank area at the south is projected on the dome. Some star projectors have two balls at opposite ends of the projector like a dumbbell . In that case all stars can be shown and the view can go to either pole or anywhere between. But care must be taken that the projection fields of the two balls match where they meet or overlap. Smaller planetarium projectors include a set of fixed stars, Sun, Moon, and planets, and various nebulae . Larger projectors also include comets and

4543-428: The same dome. In a fully digital planetarium, the dome image is generated by a computer and then projected onto the dome using a variety of technologies including cathode-ray tube , LCD , DLP , or laser projectors. Sometimes a single projector mounted near the centre of the dome is employed with a fisheye lens to spread the light over the whole dome surface, while in other configurations several projectors around

4620-409: The seams can be made almost to disappear. Traditionally, planetarium domes were mounted horizontally, matching the natural horizon of the real night sky. However, because that configuration requires highly inclined chairs for comfortable viewing "straight up", increasingly domes are being built tilted from the horizontal by between 5 and 30 degrees to provide greater comfort. Tilted domes tend to create

4697-534: The six ancient planets, Ceres , and comets Halley and Encke . Uranus and beyond are also shown, but in a fairly limited way. Another is at Sky's the Limit Observatory and Nature Center in Twentynine Palms, California ; it is a true to scale (20 billion to one), true to position (accurate to within four days) human orrery. The first four planets are relatively close to one another, but the next four require

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4774-586: The size of the Hayden. Some new planetariums now feature a glass floor , which allows spectators to stand near the center of a sphere surrounded by projected images in all directions, giving the impression of floating in outer space . For example, a small planetarium at AHHAA in Tartu , Estonia features such an installation, with special projectors for images below the feet of the audience, as well as above their heads. Traditional planetarium projection apparatus use

4851-456: The skies (1576–1601), and from these Johannes Kepler (1621) deduced that planets orbited the Sun in ellipses . In 1687 Isaac Newton explained the cause of elliptic motion in his theory of gravitation . There is an orrery built by clock makers George Graham and Thomas Tompion dated c.  1710 in the History of Science Museum, Oxford . Graham gave the first model, or its design, to

4928-456: The sky tonight?", or shows which pick up on topical issues such as a religious festival (often the Christmas star ) linked to the night sky, have been popular. Live format is preferred by many venues as a live speaker or presenter can answer questions raised by the audience. Since the early 1990s, fully featured 3-D digital planetariums have added an extra degree of freedom to a presenter giving

5005-460: The spectators, and its globes are so large, that they are distinctly seen in the most distant parts of the Theatre. Every Planet and Satellite seems suspended in space, without any support; performing their annual and diurnal revolutions without any apparent cause". Other lecturers promoted their own devices: R E Lloyd advertised his Dioastrodoxon, or Grand Transparent Orrery, and by 1825 William Kitchener

5082-476: The standard DLP design and can offer relatively inexpensive solution with bright images, but the black level requires physical baffling of the projectors. As the technology matures and reduces in price, laser projection looks promising for dome projection as it offers bright images, large dynamic range and a very wide color space . Worldwide, most planetariums provide shows to the general public. Traditionally, shows for these audiences with themes such as "What's in

5159-768: The sunrise and sunset, and an automated celestial sphere with an animated Sun symbol which, for the first time on a celestial globe, shows the real position of the Sun, including the equation of time . The clocks are now on display in Kassel at the Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett and in Dresden at the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon . In De revolutionibus orbium coelestium , published in Nuremberg in 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus challenged

5236-535: The true layout of the Solar System and beyond. For example, a planetarium can now 'fly' the audience towards one of the familiar constellations such as Orion , revealing that the stars which appear to make up a co-ordinated shape from an Earth-bound viewpoint are at vastly different distances from Earth and so not connected, except in human imagination and mythology . For especially visual or spatially aware people, this experience can be more educationally beneficial than other demonstrations. Orrery An orrery

5313-432: The walls below the dome or on the floor, or (with a bright star or a planet) shining in the eyes of someone in the audience. However, the new breed of Optical-Mechanical projectors using fiber-optic technology to display the stars show a much more realistic view of the sky. An increasing number of planetariums are using digital technology to replace the entire system of interlinked projectors traditionally employed around

5390-613: Was completed in 1781. In 1905 Oskar von Miller (1855–1934) of the Deutsches Museum in Munich commissioned updated versions of a geared orrery and planetarium from M Sendtner, and later worked with Franz Meyer, chief engineer at the Carl Zeiss optical works in Jena , on the largest mechanical planetarium ever constructed, capable of displaying both heliocentric and geocentric motion. This

5467-537: Was created. This orrery is a planetarium in both senses of the word: a complex machine showing planetary orbits, and a theatre for depicting the planets' movement. Eisinga house was bought by the Dutch Royal family who gave him a pension. In 1764, Benjamin Martin devised a new type of planetary model, in which the planets were carried on brass arms leading from a series of concentric or coaxial tubes. With this construction it

5544-399: Was dedicated to the planetarium itself while the others were used as the main entrance, with a 10-metre (33 ft) high climbing frame and a 3D theatre featuring 'A Poets Journey through Space', a locally made 3D production with poetry by Ian Macmillan, graphics by Vex films and produced by Richard Everiss. The planetarium was privately funded until it was sold to Bradford College, funded by

5621-465: Was designed to project stars from a dodecahedron , thus reducing machining expenses in creating a globe. Planets were not mechanized, but could be shifted by hand. Several models followed with various upgraded capabilities, until the A3P, which projected well over a thousand stars, had motorized motions for latitude change, daily motion, and annual motion for Sun, Moon (including phases), and planets. This model

5698-414: Was difficult to make the planets revolve, and to get the moons to turn around the planets. Martin suggested that the conventional orrery should consist of three parts: the planetarium where the planets revolved around the Sun, the tellurion (also tellurian or tellurium ) which showed the inclined axis of the Earth and how it revolved around the Sun, and the lunarium which showed the eccentric rotations of

5775-407: Was displayed at the Deutsches Museum in 1924, construction work having been interrupted by the war. The planets travelled along overhead rails, powered by electric motors: the orbit of Saturn was 11.25 m in diameter. 180 stars were projected onto the wall by electric bulbs. While this was being constructed, von Miller was also working at the Zeiss factory with German astronomer Max Wolf , director of

5852-525: Was installed in hundreds of high schools, colleges, and even small museums from 1964 to the 1980s. Japan entered the planetarium manufacturing business in the 1960s, with Goto and Minolta both successfully marketing a number of different models. Goto was particularly successful when the Japanese Ministry of Education put one of their smallest models, the E-3 or E-5 (the numbers refer to the metric diameter of

5929-481: Was offering his Ouranologia, which was 42 feet (13 m) in diameter. These devices most probably sacrificed astronomical accuracy for crowd-pleasing spectacle and sensational and awe-provoking imagery. The oldest still-working planetarium can be found in the Frisian city of Franeker . It was built by Eise Eisinga (1744–1828) in the living room of his house. It took Eisinga seven years to build his planetarium, which

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