Anthropology Alcove: The History of Astronomy, Planetariums + ETSU Planetarium Event

 

Hey y'all let's see what's up today! I had the pleasure of going to the planetarium last week, and as such I thought I'd do a little bit of a history lesson on planetariums, astronomy, and share my experience at the event. This is going to be kind of a longer post so please buckle in if you'd like to join us and let's get started!

Astronomy

According to sources, Astronomy is not only one of the oldest natural sciences dating back to the Egyptians, Babylonian and Mayan civilizations, it is also one of the first natural sciences to reach a near modern level of sophistication in the first millennium (or years 1-1,000 BCE). This era was the transitional period from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and was the peak of the Roman Empire as well as its decline. Other studies that advanced during this period were biology, meteorology, physics, and chemistry. We saw the spread of Buddhism in East Asia, as well as the Viking age and continuation of the Byzantine Empire during this period. It's almost hard to imagine that all of this was going on while these great scientific topics were being explored in greater detail for the first time!

Before the Middle Ages, during the Classical Antiquity period, Astronomy was considered a branch of mathematics. This gray area between mathematics and science comes from the fact that the Babylonians and Greeks discovered that the motion of planets could be discovered using math. This is a large part in why astronomy made so many advancements during this period, along with physics. 

It is actually believed some of the first astronomers were priests, given that celestial events such as meteor showers were associated with the gods of ancient civilizations. However, astronomy was not only used to study the planets. It was used to create agricultural calendars for farmers as well as to make maps for sailors. Astronomy also held a strong connection to various faiths and religious practices across the world, which helped to cement its societal importance and is most likely the reason it progressed as quickly as it did.

Planetariums

Along with atronomy's progression, came the invention of the Planetarium. The domed design of a modern day planetarium was inspired by the Dome of Heaven, created by the Etruscans (a civilization in ancient Italy) in around 500 BCE. In around 428 BCE, the philosopher Plato introduced his "Allegory of the Cave" which describes prisoners watching objects projected onto a cave wall using fire and shadows. This is one of the first documented uses of a projector like system which is what Planetariums use to show us the sky.

370 BCE provided us with the Farnese Atlas. The Farnese Atlas features one of the oldest preserved depictions of a globe like object, and the oldest copy of the Atlas dating back to 150 CE is one of the oldest surviving records of constellations. This copy is available for viewing in the National Archeological Museum in Naples, Italy. In 250 BCE we got our first three dimensional model of the night sky. Archimedes used a cast-metal globe that depicted the motion of the planets. Ptolemy later created his own version of this globe that could have even shown the equinoxes, however whether or not it was able to do so is still undetermined by historians.

It wasn't until 62 CE that we got something close to a modern day planetarium. The Golden House of Nero featured a dome structure that allowed for a rotating view of the sky. The dome of this structure is more open than the Roman Parthenon that was constructed around the same time, also featuring an opening for a view of the sky from within the structure. This allowed for a viewing of the night sky in real time, something that most planetariums offer even in the modern era as part of their presentations.

In 840 CE Abbas Ibn Firnas, the engineer also responsible for the early creation of corrective lenses, created a device that displayed the various motions of planets and stars, similar to the one created by Plato 1,267 years prior. However, the advancements of these personal planetariums didn't stop there.

400 years later, in 1229 during the Crusades, Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II brought a tent with a cupola or dome shaped roof. The tent had a clockwork mechanism that showed the movement of constellations and has, unfortunately, been lost to time. 

In 1584, astronomer Tycho Brahe created a device that laid the framework for the telescopes used by modern day scientists to capture images of the night sky at certain time frames (though of course cameras would not come about for another three hundred years or so). The structure was made of brass and wood and was about 6 feet in diameter. It featured various circles that displayed information such as time, degrees, and what stars would be visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately this structure would be destroyed by a fire less than 150 years later. 

Now we start getting into early constructions of more public planetariums. In 1654, the Globe of Gottorf was constructed in Saint Petersberg. The structure was 4 meters or 13.12 feet in diameter and sat several people inside the structure on a circular bench. The stars were holes in the structure, designed to let light through and give viewers the impression that they were viewing the night sky. This design is why planetariums are, traditionally, so dark. The less light pollution that you have, which is hard to avoid in modern day cities, the more stars and planets are visible to the naked eye. The original Globe of Gottorf was destroyed by a fire, but was almost completely rebuilt by 1782. 

Eise Eisinga Planetarium

In 1774, Eise Eisinga began constructing a "planetarium" that would allow people to see the position of the planets from a theatre like space. However, what Eisinga was actually constructing was an orrery. Orrery's are models of the solar system that predict relative motions and placements of the planets and moons. They may also represent the relative scale of the planets depending on the model, however this information was most likely not available at the time that this orrery was constructed. This planetarium is actually still standing today, and it's open to the public by pre-booked ticket only in the Dutch providence of Friesland. To date, it is the oldest planetarium still open to the public and still closely follows the motion of 6 planets in the solar system.

The orbitoscope was invented in 1912 by Swiss inventor E. Hindermann. This springwork driven device had only 2 planets orbiting a central "sun". The orbitoscope used a mechanism similar to the one described in Allegory of the Cave, by having small lights attached to the planets that reflected a shadow of the two other planets that could be seen from a certain angle. This produced accurate retrograde loops and speed changes of the two planets, however this was obviously not the best representation of our solar system. 

A car load of visitors experiencing the Atwood Globe

Just one year later in 1913, the Atwood Globe was constructed in Chicago, Illinois. The Atwood Globe had a diameter of 5 meters or 16.4 feet, and displayed 692 stars! It is considered the world's oldest sky simulator, as it is the oldest surviving structure accurately displaying what the night sky in Chicago might look like at any given time. The structure holds a central light bulb that acts as the sun, as well as apertures or holes that can be opened up to represent planets. This device is still on display in the Adler Planetarium and is still in use today!

The Ziess Projector

Six years after the construction of the Atwood Globe, Walther Baursfeld and a team of scientists began working on ways to bring planetarium technology into the modern era. They took inspiration from the Globe of Gottorf, and created a small easily controlled mechanism that was able to display specially crafted plates with 4,500 images of stars and planets. They were able to make adjustments to ensure that the images displayed had the stars and planets in their relatively accurate positions and are attributed to creating the first projection planetarium which is what we use today.

After four years of careful calculations and adjustments, the Wonder of Jena began hosting its first unofficial showings in Ziess Factory. The system used a 16 meter or 52.5 feet dome ceiling, and the first Model I Star Projector otherwise known as a Ziess Projector. The projector gets its namesake from German inventor Carl Ziess who specialized in creating microscopes, eyeglasses, and telescopes. The projector was renamed the Ziess Mark I and after it's success it was transported to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany where it was displayed within a 10 meter or 32.8 feet domed theatre, becoming the first official planetarium of the modern era. 

The success of the Munich planetarium sparked museums and science centers around the globe to begin opening these theatres. Though time and technology have certainly improved and will continue to improve our planetarium experiences, one thing has remained a constant: humans are still fascinated by the sky. 

ETSU Planetarium 

Planetarium Sign

I was actually unaware that we had a little planetarium in my city. We have a much larger planetarium at a nature park nearby, however this event was completely free to the public. I don't really have much to say about the event, it was really fun if you're a science and history nerd like myself. I brought my parents along, because my parents love this sort of thing

Family Photo

My dad actually worked in construction on the ETSU campus and was able to show us a really cool piece of campus history. This large rock here is a remnant from a blast mine in the 70s.

The vertical lines that you see are marks left from drilling a hole for dynamite to be placed to blast the chunks of rock away.

Display of Nebula

 Back to the planetarium though, we were treated to a beautiful view of the night sky. They did zoom in on this nebula so that we could see it a bit more clearly however they had telescopes outside for us to try to see what we could without the zoom.

Constellation Projection

They also provided a stunning view of all of the constellations visible in the night sky. I had no idea there were so many visible with the naked eye! 

They finished off the night with some educational bits about the construction of the world's largest telescope that will improve our planetarium technology which is being constructed in Chile. Unfortunately they have not settled on a name for the planetarium yet as it is currently being referred to as...

Extremely Large Telescope

This telescope is expected to be finished by I believe it was 2030, which really gives  estimate to the sheer size of this thing.

Closing

That's all that I have for you guys for now! Would you like to see more live experience content on this section of the blog or should we stick to more research essay type of content? Maybe a mix of the two? Let me know in the comments! If you want to see more from me feel free to click the link below where you can find my other socials. Y'all take care, and thanks for stopping by! 

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