[RBSJMAN]

I was one of the few lucky people to have worked and Maintained this wonderful Instrument. I worked at the Academy Planetarium for 10 years. I have actually hung on the wires. We were open on all weekends and then every day during the summer. The Model B perform extremely well. During the years I was there, 1962 to 1974. I was gone for 2 years 68 to 70, This machine was easy to run. Sometime the planets were hard to keep up to date. especially during retrograde. The precession work well. Sometimes the star field would go dim before the bulb would switch. We always had to keep the reflector ball well mirrored. This was one of the best job that I had in the Military.

[moonmagic]

Hi and Welcome-
That is very interesting. That, of course is one of the VERY RARE models from Spitz. We would love to see any pictures of the installation that existed at the time. Do you have any showing yourself behind the console? Naturally, we are interested in the machine too, but I've always wondered if the Model "B" console was similiar to the STP's?

Please feel free to scan in and upload anything that you are willing to share with us.

As you can tell we are all "nuts" about these traditional machines.

Also, ANY memories you have of working there would be wonderful to hear.
Did you present live or "canned" shows?

Do you have ANY of the brochures from those days? What about any old scripts? Any newspaper accounts? Any military pictures of the installation? It would be a real treat to see such things!

If you have anything that you would care to donate to the Planetarium Museum, please contact Owen directly. I assume you are aware of both his website for the Museum and his "Planetarium Picture Scrap-book" site?
His contact information is listed on these sites.

www.planetariummuseum.org

and

www.planetariummuseum.org/scrap.html

If you've not seen his websites, be prepared to be well impressed!

Again, thanks for this information. mm

[RBSJMAN]

Hi and Welcome-
That is very interesting. That, of course is one of the VERY RARE models from Spitz. We would love to see any pictures of the installation that existed at the time. Do you have any showing yourself behind the console? Naturally, we are interested in the machine too, but I've always wondered if the Model "B" console was similiar to the STP's?

Please feel free to scan in and upload anything that you are willing to share with us.

As you can tell we are all "nuts" about these traditional machines.

Also, ANY memories you have of working there would be wonderful to hear.
Did you present live or "canned" shows?

Do you have ANY of the brochures from those days? What about any old scripts? Any newspaper accounts? Any military pictures of the installation? It would be a real treat to see such things!

If you have anything that you would care to donate to the Planetarium Museum, please contact Owen directly. I assume you are aware of both his website for the Museum and his "Planetarium Picture Scrap-book" site?
His contact information is listed on these sites.

www.planetariummuseum.org

and

www.planetariummuseum.org/scrap.html

If you've not seen his websites, be prepared to be well impressed!

Again, thanks for this information. mm

[Ron Walker]

I was one of the few lucky people to have worked and Maintained this wonderful Instrument. I worked at the Academy Planetarium for 10 years. I have actually hung on the wires. We were open on all weekends and then every day during the summer. The Model B perform extremely well. During the years I was there, 1962 to 1974. I was gone for 2 years 68 to 70, This machine was easy to run. Sometime the planets were hard to keep up to date. especially during retrograde. The precession work well. Sometimes the star field would go dim before the bulb would switch. We always had to keep the reflector ball well mirrored. This was one of the best job that I had in the Military.

May I also welcome you to OCP. I too would love to hear and see any thoughts and pictures you may have. You mention that the planets were hard to keep up to date. Could you elaborate a little about this. I would have thought that this part of the projector would have worked flawlessly. This was (I believe) the first use of both timing belts and the small steel ball sitting in a concave magnet as a bearing. The latter went on to be used in the A3P and following models of Spitz projectors to this day. My own simple experiments have always favored timing belts as most forgiving of my poor machining skills and requiring much less torque to drive a complex system.

[Ron Walker]

Well, I guess I scared another one off....