My Labyrinth Orrery, And So Can You!
Mar. 11th, 2018 11:25 pm(Post I've been meaning to make for the better part of a year--finally getting around to it! Title after Stephen Colbert's "I Am America, And So Can You.")
In my front yard I have a meditation labyrinth that![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
muccamukk's mom created years ago. It's also an orrery for the planets of our solar system. Whenever I mention it people think it's pretty cool, so I thought I'd do a writeup.
An orrery (quoth Wikipedia) is "a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets." It does not have to be to scale (and in fact usually isn't) and it may or may not be set up to move under its own power. This one is human-powered in the sense that every ten days I go out on my lawn and move the various planets around to their latest relative positions.
A labyrinth is a maze-like pattern you can walk for meditation purposes or just for fun. Many of them are laid out more or less as concentric circles, which proved handy when Mucca's mom decided to use the big labyrinth on the front lawn to set up her orrery.
You can obviously have a labyrinth without an orrery, or vice versa, but in our case they are two tastes that taste great together. :D
My Labyrinth Orrery
We have two labyrinths on our lawn, built ages ago by Mucca's parents (who are labyrinth experts and enthusiasts). The one on our front lawn is a Chartres-style labyrinth, and looks like this:
( more about the labyrinth, + 5 pictures )
....And So Can You!
If you're interested, you can make something like this pretty easily.
( what you need & what to do, + 2 pics )
The neat thing about all this is that you can fairly easily set up a system that illustrates where the various planets are in relation to one another and the sun, and how fast they're moving, in terms of degrees of a circle. In other words, you can know if Mars is on the same side of the sun as Earth is, and how fast Mercury goes around the sun, and whether Venus is passing in front of Jupiter. And since you have markers set out for each planet, you can then go stand at Earth and look around to see where the other planets will appear as seen from our perspective.
The even neater thing is that it's all in motion, and as you update it, you can actually watch the solar system move in more or less real time.
Bonus Sock Doll Pics:
I have a little doll I made out of a sock last year, the "proof of concept" for a string of dolls I ended up making later. Her name is Anna and she's a little alien with naturally blue-green hair. Here she is exploring our solar system.
( 4 pics of doll )
Feel free to ask any questions in comments! :D
In my front yard I have a meditation labyrinth that
muccamukk's mom created years ago. It's also an orrery for the planets of our solar system. Whenever I mention it people think it's pretty cool, so I thought I'd do a writeup. An orrery (quoth Wikipedia) is "a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets." It does not have to be to scale (and in fact usually isn't) and it may or may not be set up to move under its own power. This one is human-powered in the sense that every ten days I go out on my lawn and move the various planets around to their latest relative positions.
A labyrinth is a maze-like pattern you can walk for meditation purposes or just for fun. Many of them are laid out more or less as concentric circles, which proved handy when Mucca's mom decided to use the big labyrinth on the front lawn to set up her orrery.
You can obviously have a labyrinth without an orrery, or vice versa, but in our case they are two tastes that taste great together. :D
My Labyrinth Orrery
We have two labyrinths on our lawn, built ages ago by Mucca's parents (who are labyrinth experts and enthusiasts). The one on our front lawn is a Chartres-style labyrinth, and looks like this:
( more about the labyrinth, + 5 pictures )
....And So Can You!
If you're interested, you can make something like this pretty easily.
( what you need & what to do, + 2 pics )
The neat thing about all this is that you can fairly easily set up a system that illustrates where the various planets are in relation to one another and the sun, and how fast they're moving, in terms of degrees of a circle. In other words, you can know if Mars is on the same side of the sun as Earth is, and how fast Mercury goes around the sun, and whether Venus is passing in front of Jupiter. And since you have markers set out for each planet, you can then go stand at Earth and look around to see where the other planets will appear as seen from our perspective.
The even neater thing is that it's all in motion, and as you update it, you can actually watch the solar system move in more or less real time.
Bonus Sock Doll Pics:
I have a little doll I made out of a sock last year, the "proof of concept" for a string of dolls I ended up making later. Her name is Anna and she's a little alien with naturally blue-green hair. Here she is exploring our solar system.
( 4 pics of doll )
Feel free to ask any questions in comments! :D
