Slide Projector

Slide projector, no carousel
The classic.

Remember slide film? Carousels and projectors and hauling out the big screen to see those vacation photos? Are you old enough to remember high school and/or college lectures on slides? The shop techs remember.

Nowadays everyone’s much more likely to use Slides than slides, of course. More portable, for the most part. Easier to edit, up until the last moment. Overall, a lot of advantages. But the old-school ones were pretty cool, too.

One can only hope that back in the days of the Audio-Visual Aids Department (we’re assuming they’ve been subsumed into L&IT, but not ruling out the possibility of a now-defunct academic department), they wheeled these – and film projectors, and VCRs, and hopefully LaserDiscs, too – into your classroom space on the classic steel cart. Embedded YouTube clips just aren’t the same.

News Release: Parasol-Popping

"Parasol-Popping" Experiment Set press release
Umbrella-assisted descent: Mary Poppins, Oswald Cobblepot, NASA.

Parachutes, air bags, sky cranes: there are many options for attempting to (safely) land a probe on Mars, and some of them have even worked! Unclear at this time what became of this particular parasol plan.

Science, supported via 2x4s and plywood.

Popping: interesting word choice for something that big, something intended to do the opposite of crashings and smashings.

As strange as this interplanetary toadstool looks, one can only hope it worked. Or looked spectacular when it didn’t.

Post Holder

Old optics rail post holder, dated 1-29-09
A Cenco classic

It can be a real pleasure to find old objects lying around, with their dates of acquisition marked on the side. January 29th, ’09!

Which ’09, exactly?

Yup, still in Olin 269

Olin Science Building was constructed in 1954, so it’s doubtful this particular post holder dates back to 1909. Especially as the lettering on both sides matches up.

So we were still purchasing equipment for the old, cast-iron optics rails as recently as 15 years ago? Wow.

Construction Photo

Aerial photograph of the Observatory construction, 1963
1963: a quiet corner of campus.

Six decades ago, there wasn’t much on the south end of campus, making it an ideal place for the new Observatory. Relatively calm, not much to block the view, and few sources of nearby light pollution. A lot can change in that time.

Today’s maples and oaks – not pictured, because they were maybe saplings? – are now large enough that they block some low areas of observation and are losing limbs due to disease and age. The stadium has been wreathed by parking lots and festooned with high-intensity lights. Campus buildings have crept southward, surrounding the site. Lewisburg and its surroundings have developed, installed more nighttime lighting, and the sky has grown brighter, obscuring more of the night sky.

Clouds, however: they’re here as much as they ever were. Oh, central Pennsylvania.

News Release: Space Footwear

Space footwear press release.
“I call them sneakies…”

This raises a major question: do astronauts typically wear shoes? Or do they float about in socks? Or those pajamas with the feet? We understand that every gram counts when launching things into space, so what sort of footwear makes the cut?

The Converse look is a fine one, of course. And do we spy both laces and zip-up sides?

News Release: Space Frogs

Press release, "Orbiting frogs doing well"
Space travel is only fun if you signed up willingly.

We’re all relieved to hear that. While the American bullfrog enjoys a large natural range throughout eastern North America, and are celebrated jumpers, they are not typically encountered at heights above the earth that one would consider “in orbit.”

Whatever it’s like to think like a frog, we can safely assume that the rocket launch and orbital microgravity experiences were weird by any frog standards.