How it all started
In 1913, Oskar von Miller, founder of the Deutsches Museum (German Museum) in Munich, had an idea for an apparatus that would depict the apparent motions of the sun, moon, and planets along with those of the stars. He soon asked the Carl Zeiss Company for suggestions concerning this kind of a planetarium, but World War I interrupted things. Walther Bauersfeld, after unveiling a new design for a projection planetarium in March 1919, began working with the employees under him to flesh out the details. The long-awaited moment finally arrived in August 1923 when the artificial sky lit up for the first time, far exceeding expectations. After completion, the apparatus – Model I – was permanently installed at the Deutsches Museum in Munich in 1925. Subsequent developments in planetarium technology ultimately led to Model IX and also resulted in smaller size models for teaching purposes. Yet no end was in sight for the innovations: with the advent of computers, Carl Zeiss equipped planetariums with computer-assisted control systems, built mid-sized planetariums, and developed fiber optics to depict the night skies more brilliantly than ever. The evolution of ZEISS planetariums, which can now be found all over the world, eventually led to the VELVET video projector – featuring the superior contrast for perfect fulldome projection.
