Tag: space

Attractions & Other Oddities

Just as much as he was fascinated by a star show, Owen Phairis was intrigued by the uniquely peculiar contraption responsible for creating it. It's a love that has resulted in the largest collection of planetarium projectors in the world.

With digital-video and laser systems replacing the somewhat alien-looking devices most of us grew up with, the classic planetarium projectors are now being discarded. Loath to see them scrapped, Owen decided to give them a home. His goal now is to acquire at least one of each model ever made.

See him show off a few of his favorites in this video, and try to resist counting how many times he says "projector."

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Richard Garriott, sometimes known as Lord British, is a successful video-game developer, avid astronomer and well-known space tourist, having paid a substantial amount of his own money in 2008 to visit the International Space Station solely to fulfill a personal dream.

He's also an enthusiastic collector of space artifacts, as well as a large number of oddities, which he houses at his estate in Austin, Texas, known as Britannia Manor.

In this short film, we get a brief glimpse of his fantastical collection, most notably of his assemblage of wonderful automata.

I found out about last night's total lunar eclipse just in time to get my equipment ready for some nice photos, but thanks to the weather, I was forced to spend the evening pickling my disappointment at the Fallout Lounge.

I was hoping to finally produce a nice time-lapse of the entire event, which I tried to do back in 2004 when I was thwarted by cloud cover the last time. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait almost 3 more years to try again.

Until then, I can at least share this shot, one of few that I was able to capture in '04 during brief cloud breaks.