This is For All the Lonely People

This is for all the lonely people

Stars were what they had at the North Drivein up in St Louis county when I was a child in 58 . Stars were what they had at Levi Jackson state park in 68 when dad drove us from Detroit on vacation towards eventual rain rain rain at Greenbo Lake in kentucky (according to my log).

But this is for all the lonely people for whom stars are the background like they used to be for me. Maybe they were to speak secrets to. In Tolkien they always blazed outside a glazed window, or in a forest cathedral. Sam even saw one from the reek of Mordor, and knew that there was high beauty forever beyond the reach of shadow.

Right now Carly Simon is singing ANTICIPATION, and I remember waiting for my first telescope.. and staying up camped in the backyard all night from suburban Chicago, in Ohares flight path no less, splitting doubles. No one told me about light pollution.

I remember my mother telling me abouat 71 not to go observing on New Years eve, .. we in Detroit drove 20 miles west out around Wixom for better skies - now thats a close in suburb.

Carly just sang THESE ARE THE GOOD OL DAYS. I wish I could believe that. I wish I didnt know now what I didnt know then.

This is for all the lonely people who dont look at the stars.

You might have to come here to see them. I've thought of recreating a Drivein. Paul Newman just went up into the sky .. think you used enough dynamite there Butch?

But this is for all the lonely people who sat up at camp late .. who went out into the snow . who like me in 68 went up a hill and tried to see Perseids ...

this is for all the lonely people

The stars are confessors.. as are comets.. they tell no tales of what they hear

Messengers. Harbingers

As I age the stars still really have no answers, but they never said they did. But they help us ask the right questions.

Im still one of the lonely people. But with the stars, indoor or out, not too alone


They can be yours too

You never know until you try

Objects To Be Used in the Dark

This quote has been enshrined in the Planetarium Museum in Big Bear Lake California, the hall of fame of classic projectors if you will.


Objects to be used in the dark .. can be of fantastic and unlikely shape and hue ..
for they aren't really there anymore when they open their portals onto infinity...

What other created 'thing' boasts these advantages? Exotic projectors, if home built or saved from the classic period, require exotic solutions .. but most products we build, we aim for sleek lines .. hide the workings, the innards if you will, where no one can see them .. stuff the wires .. compartmentalize the switches into a remote .. simple and elegant .. and true to form the modern trend in planetarium projectors is just this, simple globes that inspire no awe .. for in building or preserving the planetaria of yore, the instrument is as much part of the mystery as the projected sky .. hand in hand they walk in creating an impression never to be forgotten .. IF .. IF .. they themselves are not forgotten ..

In The House

IN THE HOUSE

Youve bought one, a toy, an antique, youve found one at a boutique in the shape of a mewing kitten perhaps, or a valuable relic like a Spitz Jr. Either or, whether you have an a rare Cosmorama or Zoo or something built for the kids, youve got a plantarium in the house IN THE HOUSE

you are now an educational institute, whether you know it or not. you COULD give an educational 20 minutes to a group of kids and they'd walk away babbling about a couple constellations. whether they saw them on your stove pipes and macrame hanging above the fireplace or on a sculpted dome.

you are adler, a field location. hayden . you are in the fraternity of star projectors. once you project a dipper.. a shining belt .. you qualify .. its not hard to get IN THE HOUSE ..

but as those of us who have collected.. lovingly restored.. driven uncounted miles in trucks .. worked yearss.. can attest.. its getting some wide eyed kid that 'last mile' to see your canis minor .. your canis venaciti.. your dogs of the stars. that may prove to be the hardest mile

collect your stars to be sure.. get them IN THE HOUSE> .. those few of us who do applaud and congratulate.. now join the rest of us wondering how, once collected, we can give those stars BACK

weve got them in the house.. now its time to give them away .. gare

A Thousand Hours of Thought

Have you ever viewed something that looked so simple.. so elegant .. you thought.. now why didnt anyone think of that before? Or .. whats the big deal.. I could have built that in 30 minutes with a trip to wal-mart. Such is the lot of many planetarium effects and projectors. They look elegant .. simple graceful lines.. yet I have built the HPA Emmons projector in the Museum, and it took me 3 years to dream up those simple lines. Years to think of, months to find the ingredients, and hours or less to assemble.

A thousand hours of thought. Go into the precise but elegant instruments of the stars. Consider that well as you watch that purveyor of the fantastic fade into to night, to give birth to the reason for its existence.. the backbone of the night.

And think occasionally of those dreamers who dreamed it up. Those engineers who engineered it. And help those children to their excited seats to see it come true. for they are the recipients of the Thousand hours of thought.

And who would have it any other way?

30 Minutes of WOW

30 Minutes of WOW

The very good question was this: what should be on a planetarium website, be it professional, school, or home?

I'll use a phrase I hear alot from my teenager. What shouldnt be? EVERYTHING should be! But.. lets concentrate on two elephants in the living room we somehow seem to ignore by putting lampshades on their heads. The projector, and gasp.. the stars!

Its a very interesting question, and I couldnt agree more that pictures of the PROJECTORS are oft neglected. What we tend to forget is, people take technology for granted now. Everything comes from Best Buy as far as my teenager is concerned, and 'just get it' and 'hook it up'. Everybody today 'hooks it up', whether it be big screens or dates.

But we have a unique opportunity, and more so in that we deal with not only legacy technology (hows that for a cliche), we deal with things nobody has seen. We have one foot in the planetarium industry, and one foot in those 'build it yourself'' competitions you see on TV, 'rube goldberg' contraptions built on ingenuity, passion, and duct tape. But I've been to shows where the projector doesnt even emerge from its 'silo' until its dark. And rarely if EVER is it even mentioned. Hows a kid going to get interested if they dont hear about it?

But the stars are also no longer the stars alas. The only reason my ridiculously simply HPA website doesnt have star pictures yet is that I dont have a camera that takes them yet. I have longings other people dont have apparently, HPA does.. I want to compare Orions ... I want to discuss the relative merits of how Spitz's Geminii compares with Emmons Geminii - I want to have a Pleaidies competition - whos got the best? And at least one star picture ought to be on a planetarium website. We have all this bathwater, but we lose the baby. Why are the stars forgotten in planetariums? Why is the projector forgotten?

Because .. we somehow take both the foreground AND the background for granted, and seem to want only diversion, entertainment - 30 minutes of WOW and then on to the next gadget from Best Buy, or video on You Tube .

People want flash, they want pink, they want WOW.

I think today we are just looking in the wrong places.

Where No Home Planetarian Has Splashed Before

Ol Sumner Skies Planetarium has a new problem related to 'space' - I came into my theater after 3 inches of rain and found half the rug on the floor soaked! Then I noticed a stream of water coming down the wall in the northwest.

Now the problem is, I built the dome right out to the walls and roof - in other words, I enclosed a space as big as I could and then built the dome inside as big as I could, resulting in relatively inaccessible areas around the perimeter - ie.. where the leak apparently is!

So now I face choices .. do I attempt to locate and repair the leak from above? Options range from trying to tar the seams, to stretching 4 mil plastic sheeting over it, or even building another whole roof over the existing roof. This isn't a roof you can climb up on mind you - I used metal trailer skirting sheets over a thin frame. Possibly I might have to tear out a wall and try to see where its coming IN and perhaps spread plastic sheeting across the roof from the inside, diverting the trickle of water to the outer wall. I hate the thought of that!

Infrastructure didn't concern me much, now im paying. Fortunately no equipment is in the line of fire, but for an amateur out in the elements, it may well be wise to consider NOT leaving your equipment uncovered when not in use. Expect the unexpected in other words.

I didnt have this problem with the lean to shed (in my earlier 9 foot theater, attached to the back of my large old barn) - it had a much steeper angle and was straight, not round. Round roofs bring new difficulties it seems.

So there are practical lessons here - accessibility - infrastructure - building something with an eye to the ability to repair it should (and when) things go wrong. I even know I've had animals in there - the evidence has been unmistakable. Anyone whos ever had to try and find a deceased racoon in a barn knows what I'm talking about.

So the bottom line is this as I contemplate going after the intruding water. Beware inacessible spaces, roofs, tight places. Try not to build something you can't reach later, because invariably, you'll have to !

Some areas it may not so good to pioneer, but the leaky roof home planetarium seems to be one I'm boldly splashing into.

Where no home planetarium has splashed before!

Elusiveness

Elusiveness

We can spend our lives in so many pursuits, it makes the ancient world pale in comparison. So why do we yearn BACK to the ancient world?

Try to imagine the original 7 wonders. Who among us wouldn't give anything for a digital image of the Colossus at Rhodes?

Yet would it do well on the strip of Vegas today?

I've been blessed to win two trips to Hawaii. It brought home the concept of elusiveness. For it is to me, a midwestern boy who was taken to the Rockies once growing up, was taken to Florida once in his youth, and finally flew to California in his dream job (now long gone, a victim of downsizing) So Hawaii for me joins California, Yellowstone, Panama City, in my memories of elusiveness.

Hawaii! Who knew the world was this big?

To stand upon an island and gaze south, and know there is no land until Antartica.

This is heady stuff for a boy from Illinois.

Its like those crossroads Tom Hanks stands upon at the end of CASTAWAY .. turn left and its Japan etc

And the images from that movie linger - one day I was sent a sail .. some wings ... and I flew..
who gazes on the Magellanic Clouds and wonders why Magellan had to die on a beach in the phillapeans?

But I'm talking about elusiveness.

FIND IT in your own life if you can.

It will enrich you. A planetarium allows that. Suspends disbelief

Takes me back to that kid sitting in Adler

Where does it take you? What is elusive in your life?

Pink Floyd sang it best ...

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse
out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown the dream is gone

Let us not, as they went on to sing
Grow 'comfortably numb'

Let us chase that 'city on the hill' gleaming there
Frodo saw it .. the moonset over Gondor .

Our stars have it .. we can see the Northern ross sink upright into long ago seas

Peltier saw his observatory slit give way to a kitchen window of long gone skies in 'Starlit Nights
'
let us forever if we can and God allows

Chase 'elusiveness'

and may we never quite catch it.

you know why