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.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
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!
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!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
