evilcod
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Pirates of the Caribbean - Paris
The projector in Oblivion is in fact a Zeiss projector (because I am willing to go that niche) and thinking about its size, it actually seems way too big for the space the Planetarium occupied. That style of projector seems to have mainly been used in much larger spaces, such as the London Planetarium. Interestingly the London Planetarium's Zeiss Mk 4 projector was replaced a couple of years before in 1995, though this also isn't the projector in Oblivion since that was gifted to the Science Museum instead.
I guess with that, one piece of Alton Towers folklore is debunked, whilst a new mystery unfurls - where was Oblivion's Planetarium Project from? Answers on a postcard!
It is probably worth saying at the point, it doesn't seem to be from any of the other cinema based attractions either The 3D Cinema was still open at the time, there are images knocking around of the Cine 2000's old school reel based projector and Cine360 projectors also do not look the same as a Planetarium Projector.
I contacted Zeiss Planetarium Support to see if they could shed any light on this:
I am not sure about this projector. It looks like the rest of an older Model from Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen. Obviously all projectors are removed and the star field projectors are replaced with kind of lamp shades/plates (?). The substructure is unknown to me. Considering the time it could be the projector Mark IV from the former Madame Tussauds Planetarium in London, which was dismantled in 1996 (installed in 1958).
I hope this helps.
Best regards,
Volkmar
Planetarien
So I thought the next step was to have a hunt for information about it being gifted to the Science Museum, using their collection search tool (https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/) I can only find reference to 2 of the individual projectors being donated:
https://collection.sciencemuseum.or...r-part-of-the-mark-four-zeis-meteor-projector
https://collection.sciencemuseum.or...monstration-models-orreries-planetaria-models
There seems to be no mention of the actual substructure being held by them, could this be what we see in Oblivion's queueline?