It would be interesting to visit the Kovac Planetarium to see 1st hand what he did, sounds like a tremendous artistic achievement.
We projected all stars brighter than mag. 6.25 according to the Yale Catalog of Bright Stars. The total number was 6713. We also did the planets, the milky way, and as many other things as you wanted to program.
The Kovak planetarium is different in that it uses luminescent stars rather than projected stars. That is why the whole dome moves. That is a pretty neat idea, at least in my mind.
Bob Harbrecht built his own planetarium in his basement. He used the brute force projection method of placing a high intensity lamp at the center of a sphere. He drilled different size holes in the sphere according to the stars' positions and their brightness. It worked pretty well as I recall. BTW, has anyone heard from Bob or know where he is these days?
Brent
________________________________ From: Erik Hansen <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 9:53 AM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] KovaK Planetarium
how many stars did your projector project? i thought the neatest thing about Kovac was he included the milky way.
I only consulted on building construction for a couple of planetariums. I
built the projector and associated electronics.
________________________________ From: Erik Hansen <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2013 4:45 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] KovaK Planetarium
Digistar ? The building also?
I built a planetarium once.
________________________________ From: Erik Hansen <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> To: Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Friday, August 9, 2013 8:51 PM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] KovaK Planetarium
" To be the director of a planetarium you need a college degree. If you build one they let you run it"
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57597945/stars-align-for-wisconsin-man...
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