I haven't had time to finish up any of my projects...still working on the Orrery, still working on a crazy papercrafting project...but nothing seems close to being finished. I feel I should post up something. So here are a few more pictures of lights. These pictures were all taken by having a long exposure and then moving the camera rapidly to make an interesting design. These were taken outside of a hotel in Las Vegas last summer. Click on images for a full screen picture (though not as big as original size before posting) For some different light pictures click here.

Last night I finished up the last of the gears. There is still a lot more work to be done though, including making wooden spacers and the entire frame. And the hard part is going to be putting it all together just right so that it actually runs.

The driving gear for Jupiter has 83 teeth while the gear connected to the planet has only 7 teeth. This would make a year on Jupiter have 83/7*365.2425= 4330.73 days. The actual orbital period is 4331.57 days which gives an amazing level of accuracy. It's only off by 1 part in 5200. Saturn's driving gear has 147 teeth and was a pain to cut! The gear connected to Saturn will have only 5 teeth. This makes a year on Saturn have 147/5*365.2425= 10738.12 days. The actual orbital period is 10759. This is the least accurate of all of the planets on this Orrery. It still is only off by about 1 part in 500.


Jupiter's Gears



Showing Jupiter's gears mesh.



Saturn's driving gear. Note: Since the 5 tooth gear for Saturn is so small it is actually made in a different fashion by using small wooden rods which I have not done yet.



The finished gear stack from above.



The finished gear stack from the side.



Close up of the gears.



Another close up of the gears.

I spent a little bit of time on the wooden orrery today. Click here for the original post and description. Two more sets of Gears are done (Earth and Mars). Earth's gears are one to one. Each time the driving gear turns once, the planet will spin once. Also everything in this orrery is based on Earth so in some sense there is no error in this gearing. For Mars we have the first of the reduction gears. The gear driving Mars is smaller than the gear Mars is on so Mars spins around slower than the gear driving it. The driving gear has 25 teeth and the gear Mars is attached to has 47 teeth. This gives a year length of 47/25*365.2425 =686.66 days. Mars' orbital period is actually 686.98 days. So there is an error of about 1 part in 2200 (about the same as Mercury and about double that of Venus.) The gear stack is starting to look pretty impressive.


Earth's gears



Top view of gear stack (Mercury - Earth)



Side view of gear stack (Mercury - Earth)



Mars' gears



Top view of gear stack (Mercury - Mars)



Side view of gear stack (Mercury - Mars)




Close ups of gear stack (Mercury - Mars)

Yesterday, my brother, my cousin Steve, and I went up to play in the snow at Mt. Shasta Skipark. It was my first time snowboarding in 6 years. I did fairly well, though I am quite sore now. I can't believe that I used to be able to go off jumps and do 180s and 360s (sometimes). I did go off a couple of jumps yesterday...though I barely got off the ground!

Anyways, while there, I took some pictures and used some of them to make the panoramas below.

Top of Coyote Butte looking South (8 pictures 11000x3000 33MP)



Bottom of Douglas Butte looking East (12 pictures 14000x3000 42MP)




Top of Coyote Butte looking West (Lots of pictures 17000x5000 85MP)
Note: this picture has about 260 degree field of view horizontally and about 120 degree vertically (about 60 degrees both up and down from the horizon.) It is much wider than it looks! Also the terrain is much steeper than it looks!

Tonight, I spent a little bit of time on the wooden orrery (See post below for description) and finished up the gears for Venus. These are the last speed multiplying gears (the final gear spinning faster than the driving gear). There are 39 teeth on the drive gear and 24 teeth on the gear connected to Venus. Since Earth's gears will be one to one, this gives a ratio of 24/39 compared to an Earth year. Multiplying by 365.2425, this gives Venus a orbital period of 224.76 days. In actuality it is 224.70 days. This gives an error of 1 part in 3700...even better than the gears for Mercury.

The gears for Venus out of 1/2 inch ply



Stacked on top of the Mercury gears using coins as spacers. They are raised only slightly more than they will be when finished.



Side view of gear stack.

I've always been fascinated with astronomy, gears, and building things out of wood.... So....

I've started building a model solar system out of wood (a wooden orrery). There will be some metal parts but the gears are made from wood. It has 6 of the planets all the way out to Saturn. I'm building it from these plans, and I'll be doing pretty much all of the cutting using my scroll saw. It's probably going to take me a while. If I build it successfully, I'll probably purchase a few other plans from the same site. Some of the wooden gear clocks are amazing! But of course for those accuracy is going to be very important. We'll call this project practice.

So far all I've completed is the gears for Mercury. The drive system is set up so that the 2 gears for Earth have the same number of teeth. The drive gear for Mercury has 54 teeth and the gear connected to Mercury has 13. So the ratio is 13/54. If you multiply this by 365.2425 days (need to take into account leap years!) you get a period of 87.93 days. Mercury's orbital period is actually 87.97 days. So it's off by 1 part in about 2200. I think I can live with that sort of accuracy! So anyways, here's the first gears. There's still some sanding to do.

The 54 tooth drive wheel out of 1/2 inch plywood. Penny for scale.



The 1/4 inch pegs are for the main drive crank which will be vertical (90 degrees to the gears)



The full gearing for running Mercury.

Defenestration: A throwing of a person or thing out a window.
Here's a Wikipedia article about the orgins of the word.

Around Christmas this year, Liz and I went to San Francisco for a weekend and while driving came across an art installation called Defenestration. (Click on the link after you have looked at the picture below...there are some cool pics here) I should have stopped and taken pictures but I was in heavy, yet moving traffic and just decided to snap a few pictures out the window while continuing along my way... yes, I know...this doesn't seem safe...but I find I take excellent pictures while driving. Those people that talk on cell phones or text are crazy...taking pictures while driving is perfectly ok! :)

I now have a new favorite word. If my students get on my nerves I can just threaten them with defenestration. Anyways, here's the pic.

Defenestration (parts of 4 pictures 6000 x 3000 18 MP)