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Planetarium
A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is the large dome-shaped projection screen onto which scenes of stars, planets, and other celestial objects can be made to appear and move realistically to simulate their motion. The projection can be created in various ways, such as a star ball, slide projector, video, fulldome projector systems, and lasers. Typical systems can be set to simulate the sky at any point in time, past or present, and often to depict the night sky as it would appear from any point of latitude on Earth. Planetaria range in size from the 37 meter dome in St. Petersburg, Russia (called "Planetarium No 1") to three-meter inflatable portable domes where attendees sit on the floor. The largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere is the Jennifer Chalsty Planetariu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Planetarium Society
The International Planetarium Society, Inc. (IPS) is the global association of planetarium professionals. Its more than 600 members come from 42 countries around the world. They represent schools, colleges and universities, museums, and public facilities of all sizes, including both fixed and portable planetariums. The primary goal of the IPS is to encourage the sharing of ideas among its members through conferences, publications, and networking. By sharing their insights and creative work, IPS members become better planetarians. IPS membership is open to anyone interested in planetariums. Members include directors, teachers, informal educators, technicians, writers, artists, media specialists, digital artists and producers, presenters, vendors, scientists, students, and sponsors and friends of the planetarium dome and its starry sky. Although planetariums can be part of school district curriculum, either at an in-district dome or through field trips, they also serve as sites ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulldome
Fulldome refers to immersive dome-based video display environments. The dome, horizontal or tilted, is filled with real-time (interactive) or pre-rendered (linear) computer animations, live capture images, or composited environments. Although the current technology emerged in the early-to-mid 1990s, fulldome environments have evolved from numerous influences, including immersive art and storytelling, with technological roots in domed architecture, planetariums, multi-projector film environments, flight simulation, and virtual reality. Initial approaches to moving fulldome imagery used wide-angle lenses, both 35mm and 70 mm film, but the expense and ungainly nature of the film medium prevented much progress; furthermore, film formats such as Omnimax did not cover the full two pi steradians of the dome surface, leaving a section of the dome blank (though, due to seating arrangements, that part of the dome was not seen by most viewers). Later approaches to fulldome utilized mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orrery
An orrery is a mechanical Solar System model, model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and natural satellite, moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent the relative sizes of these bodies; however, since accurate scaling is often not practical due to the actual large ratio differences, it may use a scaled-down approximation. Ancient Greek astronomy, The Greeks had working planetarium, planetaria, but the first modern example was produced by John Rowley. He named it "orrery" for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (in County Cork, Ireland). The plaque on it reads "Orrery invented by Graham 1700 improved by Rowley and presented by him to John [sic] Earl of Orrery after whom it was named at the suggestion of Richard Steele." Orreries are typically driven by a clockwork mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre, and with a planet at the end of each of a series of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planetarium Projector
A planetarium projector, also known as a star projector, is a device used to project images of celestial objects onto the dome in a planetarium. Modern planetarium projectors were first designed and built by the Carl Zeiss AG, Carl Zeiss Jena company in Germany between 1923 and 1925, and have since grown more complex. Smaller projectors include a set of fixed stars, Sun, Moon, and planets, and various nebulae. Larger machines also include comets and a far greater selection of stars. Additional projectors can be added to show twilight around the outside of the screen (complete with city or country scenes) as well as the Milky Way. Still others add coordinate lines and constellations, photographic slides, laser displays, and other images. The IMAX, OMNIMAX Film, movie system (now known as IMAX Dome) was originally designed to operate on planetarium screens. Companies that make (or have made) planetarium projectors include Carl Zeiss AG, Carl Zeiss Jena (Germany), Armand Spitz, Spi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planetarium Software
Planetarium software is application software that allows a user to simulate the celestial sphere at any time of day, especially at night, on a computer. Such applications can be as rudimentary as displaying a star chart or sky map for a specific time and location, or as complex as rendering photorealistic views of the sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from .... While some planetarium software is meant to be used exclusively on a personal computer, some applications can be used to interface with and control telescopes or planetarium projectors. Optional features may include inserting the orbital elements of comets and other newly discovered bodies for display. Comparison of planetarium software See also * Space flight simulation game ** List of space flight simu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberty Science Center
Liberty Science Center is an interactive science museum and learning center located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. At its opening, it was the largest such planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and the world's fourth largest. The center, which opened in 1993 as New Jersey's first major state science museum, has science exhibits, numerous educational resources, and the original ''Hoberman sphere'', a silver, computer-driven engineering artwork designed by Chuck Hoberman. History Liberty Science Center completed a 22-month, $109 million expansion and renewal project on July 19, 2007.Kitta MacPherson. "Innovation & Inspiration", ''The Star-Ledger'', October 4, 2006. The expansion added to the facility, bringing it to nearly . In December 2017, the Science Center opened the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium, a 400-seat facility with a dome in diameter and an diameter screen, named for the benefactor who contributed $5 mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Museum Of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain about 32 million specimens of plants, animals, fungi, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than . AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually. The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization. The naturalist Albert S. Bickmore devised the idea for the American Museum of Natural History in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antikythera Mechanism
The Antikythera mechanism ( , ) is an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery (model of the Solar System). It is the oldest known example of an Analog computer, analogue computer. It could be used to predict astronomy, astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games. The artefact was among wreckage retrieved from Antikythera wreck, a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901. In 1902, during a visit to the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, National Archaeological Museum in Athens, it was noticed by Greek politician Spyridon Stais as containing a gear, prompting the first study of the fragment by his cousin, Valerios Stais, the museum director. The device, housed in the remains of a wooden-framed case of (uncertain) overall size , was found as one lump, later separated into three main fragments which ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse ( ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Greek mathematics, mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and Invention, inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse in History of Greek and Hellenistic Sicily, Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, based on his surviving work, he is considered one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity, and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and mathematical analysis, analysis by applying the concept of the Cavalieri's principle, infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove many geometry, geometrical theorem, theorems, including the area of a circle, the surface area and volume of a sphere, the area of an ellipse, the area under a parabola, the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution, the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution, and the area of a spiral. Archimedes' other math ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period (Lunar month#Synodic month, lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days. This is the product of Earth's gravitation having tidal forces, tidally pulled on the Moon until one part of it stopped rotating away from the near side of the Moon, near side, making always the same lunar surface face Earth. Conversley, the gravitational pull of the Moon, on Earth, is the main driver of Earth's tides. In geophysical definition of planet, geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is , roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is the List of Solar System objects by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celestial Navigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the surface of the Earth without relying solely on estimated positional calculations, commonly known as dead reckoning. Celestial navigation is performed without using satellite navigation or other similar modern electronic or digital positioning means. Celestial navigation uses "sights," or timed angular measurements, taken typically between a celestial body (e.g., the Sun, the Moon, a planet, or a star) and the visible horizon. Celestial navigation can also take advantage of measurements between celestial bodies without reference to the Earth's horizon, such as when the Moon and other selected bodies are used in the practice called "lunars" or the Lunar distance (navigation), lunar distance method, used for determining precise time when time is u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dome
A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a matter of controversy and there are a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them. A dome can rest directly upon a Rotunda (architecture), rotunda wall, a Tholobate, drum, or a system of squinches or pendentives used to accommodate the transition in shape from a rectangular or square space to the round or polygonal base of the dome. The dome's apex may be closed or may be open in the form of an Oculus (architecture), oculus, which may itself be covered with a roof lantern and cupola. Domes have a long architectural lineage that extends back into prehistory. Domes were built in ancient Mesopotamia, and they have been found in Persian architecture, Persian, Ancient Greek architecture, Hellenistic, Ancient Roman architecture, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
