Good point Kevin.
However, if you search on Tellurium you most likely will get the
element, Te and atomic number 52.
Wikipedia states that there are alternative spellings,
*tellurion*,//tellurian. I confess to using orrery as a generic term.
The Wikipedia on orrery states, "In 1764, Benjamin Martin . . .
suggested that the conventional orrery should consist of three parts:
the planetarium where the planets revolved around the Sun, the tellurion
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurion> (also /tellurian/ or
/tellurium/) which showed the inclined axis of the Earth and how it
revolved around the Sun, and the lunarium which showed the eccentric
rotations of the Moon around the Earth." This suggests that his use of
the word restricted to only the Earth. (As they point out "The word
*tellurion* derives from the Latin /tellus/, meaning Earth
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth>.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurion#cite_note-2>")
Nice find of the Meccano model (which they called an orrery)
Best regards,
Claude
35N 120W
//////
On 11/3/2015 3:32 PM, Kevin Karney wrote:
It's a tellurium (and not an orrery - which shows Earth & 5 planets,
or a grand orrery which shows all the planets. Orreries usually show
our moon and sometimes the other major moons).
Very sophisticated telluriums (called lunarians) have the eccentricity
of the moon's orbit included.
The photo is a tellurium ( as far as I can see). If you look at the
Wikipedia entry for tellurium, you can see Winthrop's tellurium,
showing how the plane of the moons orbit is simulated, together with
the holder for the candle. Thus such devices were used to demonstrate
the phases of the moon and the eclipses.
Orreries and tellurians were and still are model makers'
dreams-come-true. See a very clear picture of a typical tellurium
mechanism in
http://www.nzmeccano.com/MMrecompile.php?desc=A+New+Meccano+Orrery+(created+2009-03-24+14%3A03%3A43)
<http://www.nzmeccano.com/MMrecompile.php?desc=A+New+Meccano+Orrery+%28created+2009-03-24+14%3A03%3A43%29>
Or
For a good look at a tellurium's gears, see second section of...
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1938PA.....46..567B/0000571.000.html
Best wishes
Kevin
Kevin Karney
Freedom Cottage, Llandogo, Monmouth, NP25 4TP
Phone 01594 539 595. Mobile 07595 024 960
On 3 Nov 2015, at 17:05, Jackie Jones <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Does anyone know what this is? A friend saw it in Venice and thought
it may be an eclipse demonstrator. But I have no idea and promised
him I would try and find out. This is the only photo I have of it.
Many thanks,
Jackie
Jackie Jones
50° 50’ 09” N 0° 07’ 40”W
<Untitled attachment 00004.dat>
Spotted this in Venice… is it an eclipse demonstrator?
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