Planetarium Star Projectors

[SpitzSTP]

HGM-8 with case parts in fresh primer. It took a day to remove numerous sticky-labels and sand out some corrosion. Being prepped to feed the Omniscan, this one does 7 watts.

[SpitzSTP]

Taking the omniscan out of the rack to get the new roller base underneath. I look forward to the day these machines are all buttoned up so I can clean up this mess.

[SpitzSTP]

A perfect fit so far.

[SpitzSTP]

The monolith is now nearly 8 feet tall.

[DZ]

Just wanted to say that you are my hero, Spitz! Keep up the great work, I always enjoy reading about what you do and seeing the pics. If there's anything I can do to support the cause, let me know.

[SpitzSTP]

Thanks DZ. I enjoy sharing the pics and hopefully somebody will let me know if its getting too boring so I can avoid using up the forum's resources. Hopefully down the road it will get more interesting as I get more of this equipment working. Although I claim to be done pulling out any more star projectors, truth is, I would not be able to resist doing it again if opportunities presented themselves. I just contacted two more facilities undergoing renovations, proof that the fever still persists. There are two star projectors that I never stop looking for, the old Adler Zeiss that went missing in the 70's and a certain Spitz Voyager - both shrouded in mystery. I am trying to imagine what the AVI Omniscan will look like when it's finally running so I "borrowed" this image from AVI's website (I hope they don't mind) - for their SkyLase system, perhaps the Omniscan will produce similar images. Next steps for the Omniscan are to hook it up the old PC it came with and start figuring out how the effects wheels. eyelid and elevator motors are controlled. The HGM8 will be used until the Chroma5 is working. The Minolta is already producing stars but there is still more work to do on the other star projectors. They are like kids.. they always seem to want something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwlUguqQJUY&noredirect=1

[swamidog]

just think of how amazing it will be when we start pumping LSX abstracts through that chroma5 and the omniscan... i think it'll all be worth it at that time.

Thanks DZ. I enjoy sharing the pics and hopefully somebody will let me know if its getting too boring so I can avoid using up the forum's resources. Hopefully down the road it will get more interesting as I get more of this equipment working. Although I claim to be done pulling out any more star projectors, truth is, I would not be able to resist doing it again if opportunities presented themselves. I just contacted two more facilities undergoing renovations, proof that the fever still persists. There are two star projectors that I never stop looking for, the old Adler Zeiss that went missing in the 70's and a certain Spitz Voyager - both shrouded in mystery. I am trying to imagine what the AVI Omniscan will look like when it's finally running so I "borrowed" this image from AVI's website (I hope they don't mind) - for their SkyLase system, perhaps the Omniscan will produce similar images. Next steps for the Omniscan are to hook it up the old PC it came with and start figuring out how the effects wheels. eyelid and elevator motors are controlled. The HGM8 will be used until the Chroma5 is working. The Minolta is already producing stars but there is still more work to do on the other star projectors. They are like kids.. they always seem to want something.

[SpitzSTP]

just think of how amazing it will be when we start pumping LSX abstracts through that chroma5 and the omniscan... i think it'll all be worth it at that time.

I can hardly wait to try that swami. I would like to push the envelope of what it can do using software and show material OTHER than what AVI originally supplied for it.

Details of the search for the Adler Zeiss are repeated here
(see http://adlerplanetarium.tripod.com/ ).

In 1969, Adler Planetarium sold the historic Zeiss II/III to the City of Jackson, Mississippi. So, it appeared that this historic projector would get a new life educating the citizens of Mississippi, as the citizens of nearby Baton Rouge, Louisiana were being educated with a historic Zeiss II/III projector originally from the Griffith Observatory and Planetarium in Los Angeles. But, this was not to be.

In a 2002 May 16 telephone conversation, a retired Adler Planetarium technician (Hans Behrens, who had been involved in the disassembling of the Zeiss II Projector, for upgrading to a Zeiss III in 1961) related a story to the author, regarding events followng the transfer of the Zeiss II/III out of Chicago. According to this technician, the recipient in Mississippi refused to pay the truck driver for the Zeiss projector.

Consequently, the truck driver refused to release the Zeiss projector to the recipient. The truck driver, later, sold the Zeiss projector to a man in Ohio. There is a report that this man's father owned a machine-shop; apparently, the
new owner believed work in the machine-shop could restore the projector.

The Adler Planetarium technician also mentioned that, once, he talked to the new owner of the Zeiss II/III on the telephone. The new owner was seeking further information about the projector. However, this new owner did not mention his name or contact information.

Also, there is a report that Adler Planetarium management once did contact the new owner of the Zeiss II/III (new owner's telephone number supplied by a professor at Arizona State University), in an attempt to bring the projector back to Chicago. However, nothing came of this attempt.

Another version of events surfaced recently, thanks to the investigations of planetarium collector and restorer Brent Sullivan. In a 2008 January 28 electronic mail correspondence Mr. Sullivan had with Gary Lazich, Manager of the
Russell C. Davis Planetarium in Jackson, Mississippi, the following facts were stated:

"In 1965, a dinner meeting was held and [a group of] ladies [in the community] and business leaders agreed to work together toward a Mississippi Art Museum to be located somewhere in Downtown Jackson... As time was passing, a new element appeared when the Jackson Public Schools acquired a planetarium optical instrument. The inclusion of a planetarium with all its educational potential and appeal to students and adults was promptly approved. In 1972, the citizens of Jackson in a referendum approved $1.5 million for the project."
("Arts Center, Planetarium Was 15 Years in the Making," Bill Coppenbarger,
*Jackson Daily News*, date unknown but probably 1978)

"It is interesting to note that the Jackson Separate School District just happened to have in storage a planetarium projector which was purchased some years ago from the famed Adler Planetarium in Chicago." ("Arts Center Complex and How It Happened," *Enterprise-Journal*, McComb, Mississippi, 4/25/1978)

"William T. Clark [owner of Observa-Dome Laboratories]...originally got Jackson interested in a planetarium back in the early 1960s...Clark had gotten the Jackson city schools interested in buying the old Zeiss planetarium project[or] from Chicago in the 1960s, when Chicago was replacing it with a later, more sophisticated Zeiss model. Jackson had bought the old Zeiss unit for $36,000, a fraction of its price, and was able to use federal funds to pay for half the amount. But when the City got ready to build its planetarium three or four years ago, the Zeiss would have had to be rebuilt and modernized, which would have cost $230,000 to do so. Instead, the city asked for bids on new projectors,
and the [Viewlex-]Minolta [Series IV] came in some $100,000 or more below the price bid by Zeiss. [Planetarium Manager Dick] Knapp said he felt the city did the right thing in using the old Zeiss for a trade-in on the new projector, since it got $30,000 for the old unit. 'I feel if we had used the original projector, even with modifications we would still have an outdated projector,' he declared."
("Planetarium Projector: Will It Work?", Bill Minor, *The Capital Reporter*, Jackson, Mississippi, Vol. XXIII, No. 14, April 13, 1978)

As compensation for their efforts in the project, Jackson Public Schools received free admission to the Planetarium from its opening in 1978 until 1990.

Mr. Lazich also mentioned that some of this information came from former Russell C. Davis Planetarium Manager Dick Knapp, who retired in 2001 to become a Lutheran pastor, at St. James Lutheran Church in Gonzales,
Louisiana.

Further research by Mr. Sullivan has resulted in additional information:


1) In a U.S. mail response on 2008 February 25, former Russell C. Davis
Planetarium Manager Dick Knapp recommended contacting Mr. O. Richard
Norton (who may now live in Tucson), who at that time was consulting on
the Jackson, Mississippi museum project.

2) In an electronic mail response on 2008 February 25, Arizona State
University Planetarium Coordinator ---name removed for privacy--- (who had worked at Adler Planetarium) stated that Arizona State University was considering
purchasing the Zeiss II/III (he saw it in shipping crates). However, it
was purchased by a gentelman from Baton Rouge, who purchased the
projector from the trucker as money to ship the projector to Minolta ran
out. The Zeiss II/III was being sent to Minolta, once the new
Viewlex-Minolta Series IV Planetarium Projector was chosen for use in
Jackson, Mississippi. ---name removed for privacy--- also said that he saw the Zeiss II/III in Baton Rouge, and from there it went to someone in either Tennessee or Oklahoma. The purchaser of the projector owned an electronics
manufacturing plant, grew up in Chicago, and he thought he could
renovate the projector in his workshop (he was familiar with mechanical
drawings and machining parts, as he grew-up assisting in his father's
machine shop).

In a 2008 April 3 electronic mail message to the <A href="http://buhlplanetarium.tripod.com/#GAW">author, Wayne Coskrey,
a Planetarium Curator (one of two Curators) at the Louisiana Arts and
Science Center Planetarium in Baton Rouge from 1981 to 1986 (now back in
his hometown of Starkville, Mississippi), gave more details. He said
during that time he, and Planetarium Curator ---name removed for privacy--- heard that that the Adler Planetarium's original Zeiss II/III projector was for sale.
The Davis Planetarium in Jackson, Mississippi gave-up the Zeiss in trade
for their brand new Viewlex-Minolta projector. It required a special
(expensive) tractor-trailer rig with a hydraulic hoist to safely transport
the Zeiss projector disassembled in all its wooden boxes, and the
trucking company that was contracted to do the hauling was left hanging
when Viewlex-Minolta went bankrupt while the projector was en route from
Jackson to Viewlex-Minolta.

Mr. Coskrey states, "For quite a long time, the trucking company looked
for a buyer to take the projector off their hands. In the end, all they
wanted (I believe) was little more than the money they were owed for the
transportation. ---name removed for privacy---, several other people, and I bought the projector and had it delivered to ---name removed for privacy--- dad's small chemical company warehouse in Baton Rouge.

"---name removed for privacy--- did the vast majority of the legwork in trying to find a buyer for the projector, and it was a number of years before he found someone with a real interest in making us an offer. If I remember correctly, this was a gentlemen in Pennsylvania who owned a company which did, among other
things, sonar equipment construction and testing for the U.S. Navy.
Because of this, he had a large domed room in his manufacturing plant,
which was ideal to start up a private planetarium. After a lot of
wrangling, we finally sold the projector to him and had another one of
the special tractor-trailer rigs transport it to him."

Mr. Coskrey also said, "one of the reasons it was so hard to sell was
that several of the star plates were missing, so that the projector
could no longer project the entire sky. The projector was this way when
we got it, and I'm not sure when the plates actually had gone missing.
We tried to get replacement plates from Zeiss, but they had no interest
in supporting such an old projector."

Mr. Coskrey also related the following fascinating anecdote: "In one of
those funny circular coincidences that can happen in life, I am actually
the instigator of the idea for a major planetarium being constructed in
Jackson. When I was a teenager, I wrote in to the "Ask Jack Sunn" column
in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, asking if there were any planetariums in
Mississippi. "Jack Sunn" replied that he had found out that the Jackson
Municipal School District actually owned a used Zeiss star projector
that was stacked up in a warehouse somewhere. Some influential people
read this and started workng out the details of what would ultimately
become the Russell C. Davis Planetarium. I would never have dreamed
that I would end up being one of the co-owners of that very same Zeiss
projector fifteen years or so later! (If I remember correctly, the huge
stack of boxes of disassembled projector was something like 16'x16'x8'.)."

The author would be interested in receiving additional information,
regarding the current status and location of Adler Planetarium's Zeiss
II/III projector, which was the first major planetarium projector in the
Western Hemisphere.

PLEASE SEND A PRIVATE MESSAGE to me if you have any further clues on this fascinating mystery.

[ArcDevilz]

Truly enjoying the progress. Would definitely be worth the trip to see this in person. Keep it going.


Ivan

[SpitzSTP]

Truly enjoying the progress. Would definitely be worth the trip to see this in person. Keep it going.
Ivan

Thanks for the encouragement Ivan. The idea is, among other things, to position four or five star projectors evenly spaced throughout this house and add to that, all of the laser projection gear I can get in here including whoever else I can talk into coming over for an over-the-top blowout session. Not having a dome really isn't an issue as stars bend around the angles of the vaulted ceiling which is itself a mesmerizing effect although not astronomically correct. I have alot of vintage technology that I saved from the scapper that once cost well over a million dollars, back-in-the-day. It is interesting to note that in this realm, it is actually no less viable in this somewhat unusual application. I would never be able to afford it otherwise. I see a forest of projectors in here, all different types through which one would have to carefully navigate stepping over water lines and cables. Tens of thousands of stars from multiple projectors, as far as I know nobody has ever done that before as all traditional planetariums have no need for more than a single star projector. Add to that, any RGB solid-state equipment I can talk anyone else into bringing over. That would be a memorable event, especially if it can be shared with others of like mind. I hope that God in his good grace will let me live long enough to experience it. The challenge is daunting as much of this equipment still needs alot of work and a wad of dollars. If I can get my friend Ron down here for a few days I am sure he can get at least two of these star machines running in a single day. Many thanks to Karl and Swamidog who have already taught me a great deal about laser projection technology, and for everyone who appreciates and encourages these rather cosmic notions.