That's a nice job of scaling, Pat! Bravo! I hope to use this someday myself.
Jim Pat Naughtin wrote: > > Dear Jim, > > on 2002/02/15 16.16, James R. Frysinger at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > <snip> > > > Might I suggest a homemade page on building solar system models? One > > would be orbit spacing and one would be planatary sizes. Even separating > > those two things makes for strange differences between largest and > > smallest, but actually that's one of the points that ought to be brought > > out. It is unreasonable to do both in one model. Either it would be the > > size of a small town or Mercury would be invisible. > > You are right. It does take the size of a small town. The town that I chose > for my model was Orbost in eastern Victoria in south-eastern Australia. > > I used a scale of 10 000 000 000:1 and my model measured 590 metres from the > Sun to Pluto. I used the same scale for both the interplanetary distances > and for the planet diameters, so the dimensions were as follows: > > distance diameter notes > Sun 0 150 mm I used a softball painted yellow > Mercury 5.8 m 0.5 mm I used a piece of lead shot > Venus 10.8 m 1.2 mm I used a small ball bearing > Earth 15 m 1.3 I used a small ball bearing > Mars 22.8 m 0.7 mm Lead shot > Jupiter 77.8 m 14.3 mm Childs glass marble with red spot > Saturn 142.7 m 12 mm Childs glass marble - plastic rings > Uranus 287 m 5.2 mm Ball bearing > Neptune 450 m 5 mm Ball bearing > Pluto 590 m 0.3 mm Lead shot > > Each of the model planets were mounted on a tin-plate document holder that I > had made to hold 'fact sheets' on the reverse side. The background for each > planet was flat black to suggest space and I tried to give color (red for > mars, blue for Earth, red spot for Jupiter etc.) to the planets as > appropriate (and convenient). > > The positions of the model planets were marked on a farmer's roadside fence > near the Orbost High School and the model could be removed if required for > safety from kids, sheep, dogs, and the elements. > > The kids who got to 'hang out' the model learned the most - 'It's a long way > to Pluto and back', they informed me on a hot sunny afternoon. > > Cheers, > > Pat Naughtin > CAMS - Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist > - United States Metric Association > ASM - Accredited Speaking Member > - National Speakers Association of Australia > Member, International Federation for Professional Speakers > -- -- Metric Methods(SM) "Don't be late to metricate!" James R. Frysinger, CAMS http://www.metricmethods.com/ 10 Captiva Row e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Charleston, SC 29407 phone/FAX: 843.225.6789
