MDMD (10) Astronomics

[Otto]

MDMD (10) Astronomics

Mappemondes
mappemond map-ð-mõnd
a map of the world (obs.) the world itself (hist.) [ L.L. mappa mundi ]
"Maps chart the history of navigation and exploration, discovery and
conquest . From the earliest plans and diagrams to the most modern GIS
sytems, they show a fundamental human need to know where we are in relation
to our immediate neighbours and the universe. A map is by definition a
representation of a space (usually the surface of the earth) and is
therefore rooted in the physical world. Yet cyberspace has no fixed
topography, and therefore it is the map itself that defines and becomes the
space.
(Baudrillard - Precession of Simulacra)."
http://business.netcom.co.uk/dawn/project/initial/Default.html

Hyperart Pynchon Pages:
Orrery
94; an apparatus showing the relative positions and motions of bodies in the
solar system by balls moved by wheelwork; 209; of Engagement, 536
Uranus
708; seventh planet from the sun, discovered by Herschel in 1781; 769; See
also Georgian
Kepler 17; 94; 98; 162; 631
Georgian
95; original name of the planet Uranus; 708
http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/index.html

Solar System Live - the interactive Orrery of the Web. You can view the
entire Solar System, or just the inner planets (through the orbit of Mars).
Why's it Called an "Orrery"?
"For decades I, and I suspect many other folks whose fondest childhood
memories include pressing the button on the clockwork orrery at the science
museum until their fingers turned blue waiting for all the planets to line
up -just another half-hour, Mom!-believed the word orrery to be
etymologically derived from orbit: after all, thats what it demonstrates! In
fact, mechanical models of the solar system, invented c. 1700 by George
Graham, have been called orreries ever since the English instrument maker
John Rowley named a copy he made of Graham's machine "The Orrery" in honour
of Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery."
http://www.fourmilab.ch/solar/solar.html
http://www.fourmilab.ch/solar/help/orrery.html

Orrery (or-rery), n. [Charles Boyle - 1731 4th Earl of Orrery] an apparatus
showing the relative positions and motions of bodies in the solar system by
balls moved by wheelwork.
Solar System Visualization
http://www.geom.umn.edu/software/orrery/

The Orrery
/Or"re*ry/ n.; pl. Orreries. [So named in honor of Charles Boyle, Earl of
Orrery.] An apparatus which illustrates, by the revolution of balls moved by
wheelwork, the relative size, periodic motions, positions, orbits, etc., of
bodies in the solar system.
http://www.scienceu.com/observatory/handson/orr/orr.html

Uranus
Uranus is very unique indeed compared to the other celestial bodies given
the fact that he rotates retrograde. His magnetic field is interesting too.
It has a sixty degrees inclination to the rotation axis so scientists assume
that the planet is actually reversing his polarities.

Contrary to Venus we always see him in full light, never in phases (102). He
's a gas giant like Jupiter and Neptune, four times bigger than the Earth,
he is 19 times farther away from our central star and it takes him 84 years
to get around the Sun.
He was the first planet discovered in modern times, Neptune followed in
1846, Pluto, who was the first discovered with a photograph - thus was first
seen by a human eye in negative, in 1930.

Otto