Planetarium Star Projectors

[SpitzSTP]

Southern hemisphere planet cage installed, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. Starballs go on next. This is the second Minolta Series IIB that I have taken out. The first one came out of Scobee Planetarium in San Antonio and is now in Cave Creek AZ where my friend Ron is building a dome for it. This one came out of Mishawaka, Indiana. There are subtle differences between the two machines, I have a hunch that no two are alike. I have been removing alot of dust bunnies and dirt, seems like nobody ever cleaned them the whole time they were installed under their original domes. Mild dish detergent and a thin film of WD-40 reveals a like-new artifact. There is very little wear on the gears and slip rings, this one will last longer than I will. These are engineering masterpieces and it is of no surprise that they cost a small fortune when they were new.

[SpitzSTP]

Southern hemisphere starball has been aligned and attached. Photographs taken prior to disassembly were the only clue to proper alignment in relationship to the planet cage. The balls are thick, solid aluminum and astonishingly heavy. She is starting to look like a lady again now that she is getting her balls back. This machine will travel the cosmos again.

[chad]

What a neat old pic. Spent a lot of time in that room.

I don't know what happened to the Minolta. I was offered it if I could get it out of the room but at the time I had no place to put it. I did get the Tesla coil though.
BTW, the console was custom built from the original one. Not sure why.

The controls that you can see are:
straight ahead-star machine
triangle on the left: House lights, work lights, exit lights, cove lights, volume, elevator control, I think the strobe was there.
Console on the left: all of the other effects controls. Pans, projectors, specials.

chad

[SpitzSTP]

Wow.. how cool, that you worked at Gates and you still remember what the controls are for. Do you still know anyone at Gates? If so, can you ask them if they kept any parts for the old Minolta, Ron and I can use them to support these two Minolta's in AZ. Or, if you have an email address or contact phone I can call. I am going to Colorado in the next few weeks to pull out a GOTO MKIIA, just a few miles outside of Denver. I know it is a long shot, but sometimes, these places are very slow to get rid of stuff especially if they can just shove it somewhere behind the dome. Or perhaps someone grabbed it and never did anything with it.

[chad]

They leveled the entire wing. There is nothing left from the old gates, at all. Got a new tilt dome, a bunch of 4k video projectors and a sgi supercomputer. I seem to remember the Minolta scraped.

chad

Wow.. how cool, that you worked at Gates and you still remember what the controls are for. Do you still know anyone at Gates? If so, can you ask them if they kept any parts for the old Minolta, Ron and I can use them to support these two Minolta's in AZ. Or, if you have an email address or contact phone I can call. I am going to Colorado in the next few weeks to pull out a GOTO MKIIA, just a few miles outside of Denver. I know it is a long shot, but sometimes, these places are very slow to get rid of stuff especially if they can just shove it somewhere behind the dome. Or perhaps someone grabbed it and never did anything with it.

[SpitzSTP]

They leveled the entire wing. There is nothing left from the old gates, at all. Got a new tilt dome, a bunch of 4k video projectors and a sgi supercomputer. I seem to remember the Minolta scraped.

chad

OK thanks, but sad to think they chucked it in the trash like yesterday's coffee grinds. The basic assembly is complete, just need to add all of the optical accessories, plate covers, and finish the wiring connections. In the meantime I hooked a variac to the 100V incandescent starball leads and fired up the stars on the northern hemisphere, and it filled the living room with hundreds of stars (thousands if I wait long enough to dark adapt and cover the windows to prevent streetlamp light from entering).

[SpitzSTP]

Just to help put a face on a name, this is me at far right, helping Ron and crew pour the foundation for his dome earlier this week. I am sore but it is worth it and I am so glad that I could help out. Ron has a Minolta identical to this one and unlike mine, his gets a real dome over it. Aside from tinkering with the machines which is quite gratifying, more important is fellowship among those with a like mind. I do therefore, appreciate this forum board where I can do some of that here.

[SpitzSTP]

Phoenix lights.. session #1 .. Swamidog, Karl and SpitzSTP

[Picasso]

OMG!! The size of the head on that thing I had no idea! If you ever need warehouse space in Oakland, CA let me know, I'd be happy to host one of these.

[Jem]

Absolutely inspiring work and a compelling thread, please keep posting.