The Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium ( nl, Koninklijk(e) Eise Eisinga Planetarium) is an 18th-century

orrery An orrery is a mechanical model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent the relative sizes of these bodies ...

Franeker Franeker (; fry, Frjentsjer) is one of the eleven historical cities of Friesland and capital of the municipality of Waadhoeke. It is located north of the Van Harinxmakanaal and about 20 km west of Leeuwarden. As of 1 January 2014, it had 12 ...

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. It is currently a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

and open to the public. The orrery has been on the

top 100 Dutch heritage sites The Top 100 Dutch heritage sites is a list of rijksmonuments in the Netherlands, established in 1990 by the Department for Conservation ( Monumentenzorg, today the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed). The Top 100 was a selection of historical m ...

list since 1990 and in December 2011 was placed on a provisionary list of future

UNESCO World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

candidates. It is the oldest working orrery in the world.

History

The

was built from 1774 to 1781 by

Eise Eisinga Eise Jeltes Eisinga (21 February 1744 – 27 August 1828) was a Frisian amateur astronomer who built the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in his house in Franeker, Dutch Republic. The orrery still exists and is the oldest functioning planetarium in the w ...

, a wool comber and amateur astronomer. Eise Eisinga’s mechanical planetarium is built into the timber roof of the living room ceiling of his historic canal house. William I, Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands was so impressed with the planetarium, he purchased the house and it became a royal planetarium. The museum consists of the planetarium room, a screening room where documentaries are shown, and special exhibits based on modern astronomy. Other parts on permanent display are Eisinga’s former wool combing establishments and a collection of historical astronomical instruments. Those instruments in the collection include Georgian telescopes, 18th century octants and a tellurium, an educational model of the Sun, Earth and Moon. The museum has a Planetarium Café and Brasserie De Stadstuin located in the former Van Balen coffee-roasting house. In 2018, the Planetarium celebrated the 250th anniversary of Eisinga’s move to the city of Franeker in 1768, six years before he began work on his Planetarium. It is listed as a '' Rijksmonument'', number 15668. The orrery was nominated 12 December 2011 by the Dutch government for

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

status, based on its long history as a working planetarium open to the public and its continued efforts to preserve its heritage. In December 2018, it was announced that the Dutch minister of Education, Culture and Science will be sending an application to UNESCO to request a formal nomination of the orrery, bringing heritage status one step closer.Omrop Fryslân: Eise Eisinga Planetarium voorgedragen voor Werelderfgoedstatus UNESCO
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Orrery

is a planetarium, a working model of the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

. The orrery is painted with royal blue glimmer and outlined in shiny gold paint. The Sun is painted at the center of the ceiling. The Earth is represented by a golden orb dangling on a wire. The

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

is also depicted. The clockwork-like mechanical planetarium moves as it does in reality at a reduced scale. The planetarium is very exact, but is not perfect. The pendulum, for instance, is made of a single type of metal so it is influenced by temperature fluctuations. The "face" of the model looks down from the ceiling of what used to be his living room, with most of the mechanical works in the space above the ceiling. It is driven by a

pendulum clock A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on i ...

, which has 9 weights or ponds. The planets move around the model in real time, automatically. (A slight "re-setting" must be done by hand every four years to compensate for the February 29th of a

leap year A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or ...

.) The planetarium includes a display for the current time and date. The plank that has the year numbers written on it has to be replaced every 22 years. The Eise Eisinga Planetarium is the oldest still working planetarium in the world. To create the gears for the model, 10,000 handmade nails were used. In addition to the basic orrery, there are displays of the

phase of the moon Concerning the lunar month of ~29.53 days as viewed from Earth, the lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion, which can be expressed quantitatively using areas or angles, or described qualitatively using the t ...

and other astronomical phenomena. The orrery was constructed to a scale of 1:1,000,000,000,000 (1 millimetre: 1 million kilometres).

References

External links

*
Eisinga Planetarium
at Atlas Obscura

at Jusonline.nl {{Solar System models 1781 establishments in the Dutch Republic Biographical museums in the Netherlands Historical scientific instruments Museums established in 1781 Museums in Friesland Rijksmonuments in Friesland Science museums in the Netherlands Planetaria in the Netherlands Franeker Astronomy in the Dutch Republic