This historic and rare projector came from Holt Planetarium located at the Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley. The projector was built in 1965 and displays around 1800 stars. Originally it was sold to UCLA for around eight thousand dollars. In 1973 it moved to UC Berkeley where it operated until February 29th 2008 where it entertained and educated over 500,000 people before being retired. According to Goto this projector is 1 of only 12 worldwide. After a 35 year absence it has now been returned to Southern California and moved to the museum for display and occasional use. This projector has now been offically adopted by the Home Planetarium Association as their favorite planetarium projector in our collection.
Goto Mercury Planetarium Projector Collage
(Photos by Alan Gould)
Goto Mercury Planetarium Projector pictured at Holt Planetarium
Alan Gould and Owen at the projector controls at Holt Planetarium
(Photo by Ken Miller)
Mercury Projector being hoisted on to display stand at Museum
Owen Phairis, P.O. Box 3400, Big Bear Lake, California 92315 ophairis301@gmail.com (909) 806-5698