My first visit was to the Fels Planetarium in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia PA in the 1950s. I remember squirming around in my seat to try to hold my head facing up (hurts my neck still today). While everyone was watching the sky, I was transfixed by the sight of the Zeiss projector in the center of the room. I wanted to see where the magic “behind the curtain “ was happening. It was some years before I understood how it worked. The Franklin Institute was a place of many wonders and one of the reasons I became a scientist.
The Franklin Institute and the Fels Planetarium was my second home growing up in Philadelphia. Went back a few years ago and was sad to see not only the Zeiss Projector gone, but no projector at all!! At least here in LA the Griffith Observatory planetarium has a new single ball projector with they only use a little bit in the shows. Most of the shows are computer projection! Just not the same.
I love that our world has people like Charles Hayden that know not only how cool something is but have an innate feeling for the spiritual and educational value, in this instance, of the planetarium. The man hoped and knew other people would feel the same way. The planetarium achieved more than Hayden could have ever hoped for including inspiring NDT as a kid, the world's most known public educator after Sagan.
5:15 I'm the little boy on the left. I'm surprised the museum had this picture. It was supposed to go to some math book I never saw. I remember that day. I was a child model for like a week. I was simply not feeling that job. It was so fake. But I LOVED the Museum and the Planetarium. So some background. Nothing was going on in the picture. We were pretending to move buttons around. The model agency was annoyed I had a print on my shirt. I think I even remember saying we should turn on the computers to make this look real. They said no. I really didn't want to be there. That is, until I saw all the science stuff. And I just wanted to play in it. The museum was closed, and I felt like I was in this amusement park. There was this big meteorite, the Ahnighito, that I was touching with my hands. If I remember correctly, both my mother and the woman representing the museum or the photographers yelled at me. And this tall black dude, who was introduced as someone important, an administrator, or director of education or something high ranking. I want to think that was Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I don't think Neil was working at the Museum yet. Anyhow, this dude straight-up said it was ok for me to touch the meteorite, and he was in charge. He instantly won me over and my hands went right back on the meteorite! He then took me back to a terminal, which I think was near the one in the picture. I don't remember exactly. It may have been an older analog terminal. But it controlled the lights and colors of the Planetarium. He let me play with that. But he was like a busy guy, and ran off, leaving me alone in the entire Planetarium room controlling the lights. I was in Heaven and in FULL CONTROL of the Planetarium. [well ok, maybe just the lights] And I believe an engineer (maybe) came in and was annoyed, saying something like, "He always thinks he can let kids do what they want and runs off with no responsibility". Something along those lines. So I had to get off the lights. But man was that cool while it lasted. Sometimes I wonder if that man, letting me explore, was a reason why decades later I found myself in Ramalah city, Palestine, joining and running with children as they threw pieces of concrete at Israeli armored vehicles. Those kids were exploring their political rights in an active and immersive way, much like I was at the Hayden Planetarium but without the danger of soldiers shooting at me. I don't remember where the girl was. My mother kept pushing me to flirt with her, but the lights and the science were just too cool. By 5th and 6th grade, I was cutting school and either going to Flushing Park to see the ruins of the World's Fair or the Museum. Especially in Highschool. I loved cutting class and going to the museum. I think back then, students could pay what they wanted to enter. So I would pay a quarter. Because, you know, I needed at least enough to get a Hot Dog later. Something. Plus, I must have brought every girlfriend ever there. I think one time I even gave them a nickel. But I got in. And I got to see things that stayed with me forever. After all that, I went through some wild adventures, from a street gang warrior to a kung fu warrior to an antiwar student activist, to a war journalist to a small business owner, to someone who went through some retrospection and telescopes and figured maybe I should have become a scientist. Well, I did get a BA in Political Science, but not the same. Many revolutions around the Sun happened before I realized, that I missed that museum. So I finally became a member about a month ago. Figured it's about time I paid the museum back for letting me get in for pennies all this time. Thank you Archive department or whoever kept that picture. Its an honor to have been the Museum's poster child of the 80s and the dawn of the digital age. It's more rewarding just to be in a AMNH video for a few seconds than an old forgotten math text book. My mother always wondered where those shots went. The kid in the pic. ❤
See more of our space visualizations (including a preview for our new space show, Worlds Beyond Earth) here: th-cam.com/play/PLrfcruGtplwHGEkTdgIQRYGKLMc_8LZX6.html
Outstanding video although too short on the History Of Planetariums. The James Webb Space Telescope 🔭 will provide a bumper crop of new material & insights on Our Cosmic Journey for Planetariums Planet 🌎 wide in the near future! Having been raised in Los Angeles, California the Griffith Observatory & Planetarium 🪐 dedicated as a public resource for learning about Our Universe was a cherished field trip for all students in the Southland...It is a shame Planetariums are a relatively rare resource globally with so few people able to experience these dynamic & profound insights into Our Star System & the Cosmos...
Guessing the first planetarium I saw, was at the Minneapolis downtown library. The planetarium survived until it was torn down due to remodeling, or maybe the whole library was moved. There were plans to have one in the new space, but funding fell through.
I love science. I was and am fascinated by planetariums and am thankful to the people who created them and keep them going. At 15, I "discovered" Saturn for myself with a 40x spotting scope. My love for the night sky erupted in that moment. My parents gifted me with an Edmund Scientific, 4.25 inch telescope on a motorized German equatorial mount. I spent many a winter night freezing my nerdy butt off, watching the sky. This video was thoroughly enjoyable and very well done. I am saddened that credit was not given to the one responsible for it all. ~In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth. Genesis 1.1~ I thank God for the gift of his creation and for the dedicated scientists who study God's creation, even though, sad to say, many of them suppress the truth and refuse to acknowledge the God whose creation itself provide evidence of his existence.
Sadly he falls under the Zeiss umbrella and there was no time to mention him specifically. If we did then we'd have to explain who he is and what a geodesic dome is. Given the time constraints Zeiss necessarily became a catchall. If this was a 1 hour piece, all of this could have made it in there.
My first visit was to the Fels Planetarium in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia PA in the 1950s. I remember squirming around in my seat to try to hold my head facing up (hurts my neck still today). While everyone was watching the sky, I was transfixed by the sight of the Zeiss projector in the center of the room. I wanted to see where the magic “behind the curtain “ was happening. It was some years before I understood how it worked. The Franklin Institute was a place of many wonders and one of the reasons I became a scientist.
The Franklin Institute and the Fels Planetarium was my second home growing up in Philadelphia. Went back a few years ago and was sad to see not only the Zeiss Projector gone, but no projector at all!! At least here in LA the Griffith Observatory planetarium has a new single ball projector with they only use a little bit in the shows. Most of the shows are computer projection! Just not the same.
I love that our world has people like Charles Hayden that know not only how cool something is but have an innate feeling for the spiritual and educational value, in this instance, of the planetarium. The man hoped and knew other people would feel the same way. The planetarium achieved more than Hayden could have ever hoped for including inspiring NDT as a kid, the world's most known public educator after Sagan.
5:15 I'm the little boy on the left. I'm surprised the museum had this picture. It was supposed to go to some math book I never saw.
I remember that day. I was a child model for like a week. I was simply not feeling that job. It was so fake. But I LOVED the Museum and the Planetarium. So some background. Nothing was going on in the picture. We were pretending to move buttons around. The model agency was annoyed I had a print on my shirt. I think I even remember saying we should turn on the computers to make this look real. They said no. I really didn't want to be there. That is, until I saw all the science stuff. And I just wanted to play in it. The museum was closed, and I felt like I was in this amusement park.
There was this big meteorite, the Ahnighito, that I was touching with my hands. If I remember correctly, both my mother and the woman representing the museum or the photographers yelled at me. And this tall black dude, who was introduced as someone important, an administrator, or director of education or something high ranking. I want to think that was Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I don't think Neil was working at the Museum yet. Anyhow, this dude straight-up said it was ok for me to touch the meteorite, and he was in charge. He instantly won me over and my hands went right back on the meteorite!
He then took me back to a terminal, which I think was near the one in the picture. I don't remember exactly. It may have been an older analog terminal. But it controlled the lights and colors of the Planetarium. He let me play with that. But he was like a busy guy, and ran off, leaving me alone in the entire Planetarium room controlling the lights. I was in Heaven and in FULL CONTROL of the Planetarium. [well ok, maybe just the lights] And I believe an engineer (maybe) came in and was annoyed, saying something like, "He always thinks he can let kids do what they want and runs off with no responsibility". Something along those lines. So I had to get off the lights. But man was that cool while it lasted.
Sometimes I wonder if that man, letting me explore, was a reason why decades later I found myself in Ramalah city, Palestine, joining and running with children as they threw pieces of concrete at Israeli armored vehicles. Those kids were exploring their political rights in an active and immersive way, much like I was at the Hayden Planetarium but without the danger of soldiers shooting at me.
I don't remember where the girl was. My mother kept pushing me to flirt with her, but the lights and the science were just too cool.
By 5th and 6th grade, I was cutting school and either going to Flushing Park to see the ruins of the World's Fair or the Museum. Especially in Highschool. I loved cutting class and going to the museum. I think back then, students could pay what they wanted to enter. So I would pay a quarter. Because, you know, I needed at least enough to get a Hot Dog later. Something. Plus, I must have brought every girlfriend ever there. I think one time I even gave them a nickel. But I got in. And I got to see things that stayed with me forever.
After all that, I went through some wild adventures, from a street gang warrior to a kung fu warrior to an antiwar student activist, to a war journalist to a small business owner, to someone who went through some retrospection and telescopes and figured maybe I should have become a scientist. Well, I did get a BA in Political Science, but not the same. Many revolutions around the Sun happened before I realized, that I missed that museum. So I finally became a member about a month ago. Figured it's about time I paid the museum back for letting me get in for pennies all this time.
Thank you Archive department or whoever kept that picture. Its an honor to have been the Museum's poster child of the 80s and the dawn of the digital age. It's more rewarding just to be in a AMNH video for a few seconds than an old forgotten math text book. My mother always wondered where those shots went.
The kid in the pic. ❤
See more of our space visualizations (including a preview for our new space show, Worlds Beyond Earth) here: th-cam.com/play/PLrfcruGtplwHGEkTdgIQRYGKLMc_8LZX6.html
Wonderful production. Thank you a lot to all involved!
what a great video! I loved learning about the history of the Hayden Planetarium!
Glad you enjoyed it! ⭐🪐⭐
We have realy great Planetariums in St. Peterburg.
I advise you to visit someday =)
Outstanding video although too short on the History Of Planetariums. The James Webb Space Telescope 🔭 will provide a bumper crop of new material & insights on Our Cosmic Journey for Planetariums Planet 🌎 wide in the near future!
Having been raised in Los Angeles, California
the Griffith Observatory & Planetarium 🪐 dedicated as a public resource for learning about Our Universe was a cherished field trip for all students in the Southland...It is a shame Planetariums are a relatively rare resource globally with so few people able to experience these dynamic & profound insights into Our Star System & the Cosmos...
Too short indeed. It was expanded to 8 mins from 6! It could easily be a 30-60 min doc.
this video is beautifully done!
So nice video, absolutely gorgeous! Thank you very much!
Guessing the first planetarium I saw, was at the Minneapolis downtown library. The planetarium survived until it was torn down due to remodeling, or maybe the whole library was moved. There were plans to have one in the new space, but funding fell through.
Very good
Now we have VR abilities for Planetariums
0:50 Czech Orloj cameo, yay :D
I might write a story about the opening of the new Hayden Planetarium in 2000 and the Rose Center for Earth and Space.
Wow, that sounds very cool!
I don't know if Neil's right about planetarium referring to an object, the suffix -arium definitely refers to a place/space
I love science. I was and am fascinated by planetariums and am thankful to the people who created them and keep them going. At 15, I "discovered" Saturn for myself with a 40x spotting scope. My love for the night sky erupted in that moment. My parents gifted me with an Edmund Scientific, 4.25 inch telescope on a motorized German equatorial mount. I spent many a winter night freezing my nerdy butt off, watching the sky.
This video was thoroughly enjoyable and very well done. I am saddened that credit was not given to the one responsible for it all.
~In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth. Genesis 1.1~
I thank God for the gift of his creation and for the dedicated scientists who study God's creation, even though, sad to say, many of them suppress the truth and refuse to acknowledge the God whose creation itself provide evidence of his existence.
They could have at least mentioned Walther Bauersfeld, who invented the projection planetarium (and the geodesic dome - sorry, Bucky).
Sadly he falls under the Zeiss umbrella and there was no time to mention him specifically. If we did then we'd have to explain who he is and what a geodesic dome is. Given the time constraints Zeiss necessarily became a catchall. If this was a 1 hour piece, all of this could have made it in there.
6:41-7:10
Planetariums inspired me to be a Dota 2 player.
Neil degrasse Tyson is awesome
Never been to a planetarium is there one in fl
Certainly one in Miami..
There are actually dozens in Florida. Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Bradenton, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Cocoa and more.
Planetariums are based on the correct model of the world not the heliocentric BS.
Are you a heliocentrism denier lmao