Credits: Article and images by Cheryl Chia @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/christiaan-van-der-klaauw-x-revolution-planetarium-prometheus/
Mechanical planetariums date back to ancient times with the earliest known example being the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek device discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Antikythera, estimated to have been created between 200 B.C. and 150 B.C. This astonishingly sophisticated device, though not fully understood until advancements in technology, demonstrated early mechanical expertise in modeling astronomical movements, including the cycles of the planets, a prediction of eclipses, and most extraordinarily, accounting for the variable lunar cycle, approximately 1,805 years before Johannes Kepler decided to abandon Aristotle’s views and discovered that planetary orbits were not circular but elliptical.
The 18th century saw the emergence of the modern orrery, named after Charles Boyle, the 4th Earl of Orrery, who commissioned one of the earliest models from English instrument maker John Rowley. The Ulysse Nardin Planetarium Copernicus, introduced in 1988, was the earliest wristwatch to incorporate a planetarium, displaying the orbits of the six major planets and the Moon. The CVDK Planetarium, however, is much smaller with a planetarium spanning no more than 15mm and features the planets represented by spheres. Ultimately, you want a planetarium that is poetic, beautiful, and therefore, explicit in its representations of the planets.
Credits: Article and images by Cheryl Chia @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/christiaan-van-der-klaauw-x-revolution-planetarium-prometheus/