From the newsletter Planetaria Obscura - June, 2016
What’s the appeal of a home made star projector? HPA Issue 12 had this to say:
Starlab? I don’t want one! I want one of a kind instruments, hand labored, eccentric, quirky, and beautiful in their own unique personalities. I like instruments that grow month by month, instruments that require hand adjustment, and ones that have permanent homes rather than living out of a suitcase. Instruments with names, not numbers This is not to knock commercial big boys however, when recently I visited Chris McCall’s Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, I was impressed by the way her Spitz did a kind of ballet, whirling and even back flipping at shows end gracefully. I was probably the only one watching the stars AND their source instead of the program being presented.
So for shows like Chris’s and the ones I’ve done, the plot (the story) here was certainly the astronomical information given. But to me, the theme (the underlining meaning) was that the heavens are a kind of ballet. And the projector is the dancer. I watch both.
I liked the old amusement parks, before ’theme’ parks came into being, so really I think of my planetarium as both. Many themes live out there, as the plots play out. But amusements? I’m lucky to be old enough to remember Riverview in Chicago, and Chain of Rocks on the bluffs above St Louis. How would my planetarium measure up as a center of amusement? I can speak of the galaxy as one big steam carousel, in a carnival of night. See how it whirls! Are we not on some gilded horse going round and round
forever amid the flashing lights and calliope music? Gravity provides our roller coaster rides, invisible fingers accelerating us on a fantastic track through eternity. Quantum physics now lures us into a bizarre funhouse of curved mirrors, stretching and flattening out our realities. A planetarium and its atmospheric hurly burly (I always wanted to say that) puts you right on the midway.
Step right up.
What’s the appeal of a home made star projector? HPA Issue 12 had this to say:
Starlab? I don’t want one! I want one of a kind instruments, hand labored, eccentric, quirky, and beautiful in their own unique personalities. I like instruments that grow month by month, instruments that require hand adjustment, and ones that have permanent homes rather than living out of a suitcase. Instruments with names, not numbers This is not to knock commercial big boys however, when recently I visited Chris McCall’s Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, I was impressed by the way her Spitz did a kind of ballet, whirling and even back flipping at shows end gracefully. I was probably the only one watching the stars AND their source instead of the program being presented.
So for shows like Chris’s and the ones I’ve done, the plot (the story) here was certainly the astronomical information given. But to me, the theme (the underlining meaning) was that the heavens are a kind of ballet. And the projector is the dancer. I watch both.
I liked the old amusement parks, before ’theme’ parks came into being, so really I think of my planetarium as both. Many themes live out there, as the plots play out. But amusements? I’m lucky to be old enough to remember Riverview in Chicago, and Chain of Rocks on the bluffs above St Louis. How would my planetarium measure up as a center of amusement? I can speak of the galaxy as one big steam carousel, in a carnival of night. See how it whirls! Are we not on some gilded horse going round and round
forever amid the flashing lights and calliope music? Gravity provides our roller coaster rides, invisible fingers accelerating us on a fantastic track through eternity. Quantum physics now lures us into a bizarre funhouse of curved mirrors, stretching and flattening out our realities. A planetarium and its atmospheric hurly burly (I always wanted to say that) puts you right on the midway.
Step right up.
