This delightful object is the decommissioned star projector from the planetarium in San Diego. To give you sense of scale, its diameter is about five feet. It now lives in the basement, where it is, sadly, collecting dust. This projector was innovative in that it could represent the cosmos in a more dynamic way than the traditional "dumbell" projectors because it has three axes of rotation, as opposed to the regular two. Thus, you could feel like you were flying through the sky, and not just looking up at it. They showed me the new projector, which is digital and can of course do lots of fancy things, but it has none of the romance of this terrifying spiky sphere.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Starball
This delightful object is the decommissioned star projector from the planetarium in San Diego. To give you sense of scale, its diameter is about five feet. It now lives in the basement, where it is, sadly, collecting dust. This projector was innovative in that it could represent the cosmos in a more dynamic way than the traditional "dumbell" projectors because it has three axes of rotation, as opposed to the regular two. Thus, you could feel like you were flying through the sky, and not just looking up at it. They showed me the new projector, which is digital and can of course do lots of fancy things, but it has none of the romance of this terrifying spiky sphere.
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1 comment:
It looks like a huge head sitting on a skinny neck. I'd love to have a mini version of this as a nightlight for Palden.
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