Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Geostationorrery Orrery

Not a proper orrery. But interestng.
 
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The Geostatonorrery would be an exhibit in a planetarium or science museum.

In the centre of a large, darkened space is suspended a scale model of your puny little planet, correctly tilted to the plane of the ecliptic.

A spotlight fixed on one wall represents your system's sun.

Dangling from fine black threads are tiny, shiny metallic objects, each of which is a scale model of a geostationary satellite. These are attached to a ring high above, which rotates in synchrony with the model planet. The strings are manipulated by stepper motors to correctly simulate the azumuthal movement of the satellites.

Other rings are placed within the geostationary ring to allow other objects like the ISS etc. to be "flown" into the environment.

Your moon is not shown per se, but an appropriately scale-adjusted mirror mounted on a robotic stalk tracks round so as to reproduce the moon's illumination.

If the model is completely accurate, more informed visitors may be puzzled as to why there appears to be a large cubic structure lurking in the shadow of one of your communications platforms ...

8th of 7, Apr 07 2010


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Annotation:







       The last time I saw a map of all these satellites it looked as if the earth was layered with a grid of thousands of tiny pins... Like concentric Hellraisers, if you will. The orrery would be quite spectactulorrery, but ultimately drab since they are all stationary to the geo and themselves. Neut!
daseva, Apr 07 2010
  


 

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