# The Adler Planetarium Has A Cabinet Of Curiousities! (LINK) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 8, 2024, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567 "2024-10-08T18:34:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2024, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567/1 "2024-10-08T18:34:33Z")
Chicago’s Adler Planetarium has a marvelous collection of antiques, pertaining to Astronomy! Who knew? [HOW CHARMING ! (LINK)](https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/09/06/americas-first-planetarium-is-hiding-an-enormous-cabinet-of-curiosities/?__s=0m8tb4f3xt24vacog2th&utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekend+Conversation+Starters&utm_content=It%E2%80%99s+time+for+a+change.) ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567/2 "2024-10-08T20:26:22Z")
A bit off-topic but today I was reading: > **[A Brief History of the World’s First Planetarium](https://spectrum.ieee.org/planetarium-history)** > > Crowds flocked to see an artificial starry sky projected onto a dome > On 7 May 1925, the world’s first projection planetarium officially opened to the public at the Deutsches Museum. The Zeiss Model I displayed 4,500 stars, the band of the Milky Way, the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Gears and motors moved the projector to replicate the changes in the sky as Earth rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun. Visitors viewed this simulation of the night sky from the latitude of Munich… ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2024, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567/3 "2024-10-08T22:37:51Z")
I was just at the Adler Planetarium last week. They certainly do have _some_ of that stuff on display. While they might not have all the specific items in that blog post on display, I certainly saw similar items that were. I’m sure they just don’t have the floor space to display all of their collection at one time. But I definitely saw plenty of antique sun dials, telescopes, astrolabes, sextants, and other antique astronomy instruments. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2024, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567/4 "2024-10-08T22:39:55Z")
Went to Adler in April and thoroughly enjoyed the Space Race memorabilia they had on display, in particular the Gemini 12 capsule and the Moon rock. Small place, but enough stuff to browse to hold your interest while you wait for the Pink Floyd show. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2024, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567/5 "2024-10-09T11:35:27Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Chicago’s Adler Planetarium has a marvelous collection of antiques, pertaining to Astronomy! > Who knew? The Hayden Planetarium attached to the American museum of Natural History in New York, before they bulldozed the old building and replaced it with one where a model of a sun is the planetarium dome, had an exhibit called “Astronomia” > [@](#): > > ### Exist Dates > > 1964 - 1997 > > ### Biographical or Historical Note > > abstract > Permanent exhibition. Opened June 29, 1964 and closed January 5, 1997. Located on Floor 2, Section 18. The Hayden Planetarium’s Astronomia exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History, also known as the IBM Wing, focused on the history of astronomy and exhibited early astronomical and navigation instruments. The gallery initially featured loans of objects and manuscripts from the Adler Planetarium, Harvard College, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress (1, 1963/64 p. 4, 25-26; 1, 1997) and by the 1990s, the gallery is described as “a variety of astronomical lore with pictures and writings from medieval times to the present.” Exhibits also demonstrated how astronomers measure the distance of stars and how a planet’s distance from the sun affects its orbit around the sun. Although the exhibit Your Weight on Other Worlds moved around the Planetarium, Astronomia at one point featured these scales (3, 1990; 4, 1984, p. 63). [https://data.library.amnh.org/archives-authorities/id/amnhc\_4000090](https://data.library.amnh.org/archives-authorities/id/amnhc_4000090) Pictures here, but not really good ones: > **[Digital Collections | AMNH - Astronomia, Hayden Planetarium 1990-1997](https://digitalcollections.amnh.org/archive/Astronomia--Hayden-Planetarium-1990-1997-2URM1T1YWI3V.html)** > > Explore rich selections from the collections at the American Museum of Natural History: texts, images, sound files, moving images and other archival holdings. This is better: > **[Digital Collections | AMNH - I.B.M. Astronomia Exhibit, Hayden Planetarium, 1964](https://digitalcollections.amnh.org/archive/I-B-M--Astronomia-Exhibit--Hayden-Planetarium--1964-2URM1T9XP3JD.html)** > > Explore rich selections from the collections at the American Museum of Natural History: texts, images, sound files, moving images and other archival holdings. There were also antique instruments around the planetarium outside that exhibit. I have no idea what happened to all of that after they revamped. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2024, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-adler-planetarium-has-a-cabinet-of-curiousities-link/1008567/6 "2024-10-09T11:36:02Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Who knew? Me!!!