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Interior view of the Buhl Planetarium

1939/1947

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Interior view of the Buhl Planetarium
  • Title
  • Interior view of the Buhl Planetarium
  • Identifier
  • MSP285.B003.F09.I03
  • Source Identifier
  • MSP285.B003.F09.I03
  • Description
  • The Main Hall of the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science looking west to east. The planetarium, located in Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood, was designed by architects Ingham, Pratt & Boyd. The facility opened as the United State's fifth major planetarium on October 24, 1939. The Periodic Table of the Elements exhibit (right-center foreground) allowed visitors to see samples of the “building blocks” of our universe. A model of the Earth rested atop the exhibit that rotates in bright light representing that of the Sun, and here a day of light and a night of darkness require only twelve seconds to pass. In the background hangs the thirty-five foot long Foucault Pendulum. This pendulum can swing freely in any horizontal direction, and was started each day along a line from north to south. Immediately behind the pendulum is the Physics case that contains three High Voltage exhibits: namely, a Cosmic Ray Counter, a Tesla Coil, and a model of the Van de Graaff Generator. The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science closed as a public museum on August 31, 1991. In April 2002, Pittsburgh City Council approved a bill allowing the lease of the building to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum for the museum’s proposed expansion project.
  • Genre
  • photographs
  • Subject
  • Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
    Planetariums--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh.
  • Source
  • Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs, 1892-1981, MSP 285, Library and Archives Division, Senator John Heinz History Center
  • Contributor
  • Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center
  • Collection
  • Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs
  • Rights Information
  • Copyright Not Evaluated. The copyright and related rights status of this Item has not been evaluated. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use.
    http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/