More than furs, fancy cars or jewelry, I've always wanted an orrery.

January 29, 2002 9:22 PM

More than furs, fancy cars or jewelry, I've always wanted an orrery. If you don't know what an orrery is, check this link out. I want the one with *all* the planets, of course. You may remember that there was a room-sized in Aughra's house in the movie The Dark Crystal. Spotted at Bruce Sterling's Schism Matrix
posted by Lynsey (13 comments total)

YES YES YES! I always wanted one. A huge one, made of crystal and gold (glass and brass on my current budget).

Of course, I also have always wanted a room done completely in white, with a grand piano that even has the black keys done in white, so there's no accounting for my taste.

But orreries are wayyy cool.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:37 PM on January 29, 2002

Yes, they are.
posted by cx at 10:02 PM on January 29, 2002

Since I don't have a drawing room to put it in, I would settle for an earth-sun-moon version. Where do they sell the ones you see in seventh-grade classrooms?
posted by idiolect at 10:07 PM on January 29, 2002

Beautiful.

I want the Oort cloud in mine.
posted by rodii at 10:16 PM on January 29, 2002

I thought long ago about collecting orreries, but I figured they would take up way too much space. Some of these, however, appear to be quite compact.
posted by jjg at 10:45 PM on January 29, 2002

Y'all can have yer orreries...

I. WANT. AN. ASTROLABE.
posted by Zurishaddai at 10:46 PM on January 29, 2002

I've always wanted to build an orrery. Never could quite figure out how to do it, though. I've long wanted to make the first 'modern' orrery, where Pluto would be a statue of the Disney dog, Mercury would be a thermometer (or a model car), Earth would be a little glass jar of dirt, Mars would be a candy bar, etc. (And let's keep Uranus out of this discussion.)
posted by LeLiLo at 10:50 PM on January 29, 2002

any flash wizards up for building a online orrery?
posted by th3ph17 at 10:52 PM on January 29, 2002

John Crowley's book Little Big features a nifty old house with a working room sized orrery upstairs.
posted by jessamyn at 11:43 PM on January 29, 2002

There's already an Online Virtual Orrery called the Virtual Solar System, although you need to download the 4Mb Visiscape browser plugin. It's hardly the same as having a massive Vistorian metal contraption in your dining room, but it is pretty cool and packed with features/info.
posted by ajbattrick at 12:32 AM on January 30, 2002

Awright, orrery....
posted by groundhog at 7:58 AM on January 30, 2002

John Crowley's book Little Big features a nifty old house with a working room sized orrery upstairs.

Nah, it didn't actually work, Crowley just made you think it did.
posted by kindall at 8:36 AM on January 30, 2002

More Orreries for sale here.
posted by kokogiak at 10:48 AM on January 30, 2002