Senior Member
Karl gave me another Danger sign marked for Argon/Krypton Ion so I took it to Fedex and paid 2.00 for a heavier laminate then got four fridge magnets at Walmart to affix as shown in upper right to disclose that there can be at times, radiation in the living room.
Senior Member
I love following your work.
Senior Member
Many sincere thanks! I am glad to have this ability to share some of it. If everything is working correctly (rare) and the music is right, I enter another dimension. Not everyone knows what I am talking about, but you guys do, otherwise I wouldn't be in hereOriginally Posted by no-esc
Last edited by SpitzSTP; 12-18-2013 at 18:40.
Senior Member
Wiring never seems to end. This year brings the need for magnifiers, one for each eye.. actually, one 5 diopter another 10 diopter. Last night I noticed the stars from the Minolta going right up to the edge of the picture window, then real stars continued where the projected ones stop. Sometimes the line between reality and imagination is indistinct.
Last edited by SpitzSTP; 12-22-2013 at 13:44.
Senior Member
Awesome Spitz! I would love to see one of these in action - or in bits to be honest!
Do you how many meters of cable are going to be in this when it's finished?
Keith
Senior Member
Thanks Keith! I have lost track of how many spools of wire I have used so far but it's a bunch. Some of these machines need all new wiring by the time I get them. Fortunately it's not too hard to score a good deal on surplus wire. The Minolta is producing a beautiful night sky with thousands of crisp bright stars. These Minolta's are legendary for that. The Saint STP is using up the most wire so far. After this second projector is wired, there are TWO more projectors in here to work on - a wonderful GOTO MkIIA (one of only three known to still exist - the other is at UCLA and the another back east somewhere), followed by the notorious Spitz Starscape or "death star". I thought I was gonna stop getting any more of these machines then I found out I need to go rescue another one this spring, a fully functional Spitz 512 that is in no need of restoration. The idea is, with all these projectors, to get a million+ stars above. They don't need to be in astronomically-correct positions in the sky for where I am going, which is outside of earth's perspective.
Last edited by SpitzSTP; 12-22-2013 at 14:19.
Senior Member
Fantastic!
I can't imagine what these are like in person - I bet the contrast ratio is a lot better than the digital stuff though? A million+ stars would be amazing!
Do you have access to a planetarium dome or do you use them in your front room?
Senior Member
C'mon over! bring some of your stuff let's collaberate if you are ever in the area. I believe the star images from these older opto-mechanical projectors are better than digital technology, based on what I've seen to compare it to which might be somewhat dated. For example stars I've seen from a local planetarium with a digital projector look far more like pixels than stars although it's hard to beat the 3D rollercoaster effects. From time to time I find or hear of domes being demolished, dismantled or otherwise removed from institutions that are upgrading or shutting down. Some of these domes are spectacular, but I don't have a crew of people to help me nor so I have a facility large enough to reassemble one, not even a 30 foot dome. I wish I did, because that is the perfect surface to project the heavens upon. If I had more funds and a large enough building it would be entirely possible to remove a dome from one location and re-assemble it in another. Instead, I use the vaulted ceiling in my house which is divided into two large rooms each with a somewhat divided portion of vaulted ceiling. When it's totally dark in here the effect is about the same as looking up at the night sky as long as one does not expect stars to appear in exactly the same place as going outside and looking up. The stars also curve or wrap around angular surfaces which is in itself an interesting effect. These projectors are also time machines in that they can go backward or forward in time and display the stars as they would have appeared in the past, or as they will appear in the future, from earth perspective. If I am not looking at stars from this planet I would not expect them to look the same as they should anyway, regardless of what year I am in, so it's all o.k.
Senior Member
Oh, I would LOVE to come over! I will make a trip over the US sometime - I might have to take a couple of months out as I think I'll be doing rather a lot of travelling :P
They must be very complex mechanically, to be able to adjust stellar positions through time? That control panel looks pretty complex in itself!
Keith
Senior Member
Hopefully by the time you get here, all (or more) of this stuff will be working by then. These are complex machines, I don't understand the engineering that went into creating them. It most certainly is a lost or dying art as everything gradually goes digital. The machines that display the solar system as well as stars are full of gears. There must have been a few slide rule calculations involved. I cannot imagine the person that hand drilled all of the star holes and placed the individual lenses, or how they drilled the holes so precisely. The Spitz Starscape is different than the rest of the projectors. It is a sphere mounted on a 3-axis gimbal so it can so all sorts of stuff that the other projectors can't, such as accurate spacecraft pitch and yaw simulation which is what it's prototype was built for (Spitz reportedly built a smaller version for NASA for use in Apollo astronaut training). I wish I knew someone who is an expert in DC servo motor control, as that is what this one needs to get it working.
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