Carolyn and Mark's German Eclipse Adventure

Carolyn and Mark's German Eclipse Adventure Munich
	The lines were long to get into the Deutches Museum in Munich, but on one of Carolyn's free days, we decided to go there and see what is unarguably the German equivalent to parts of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. It houses dozens of galleries, showing off everything from spacecraft to aircraft, boats, cars, trains, planes, radio telescopes, musical instruments, science labs, electrical generation equipment, bicycles, and more stuff than anybody can possibly see in one day!

Continuing with the planetarium theme, we beheld the "Wonder of Jena", the first Zeiss projector planetarium (now an exhibit in the Astronomy hall), the one that started it all. We've been planetarians for more than 20 years now, getting our start with a Zeiss Mark VI instrument -- the great-great-grandchild of this historical instrument. We often marvel at the links that led from this machine to our involvement with planetaria through Loch Ness Productions.

And of course we saw the two planetarium theaters here -- the conventional Zeiss M-1015 in the Deutches Museum proper, and the Zeiss VII in the nearby Forum Der Technik (as the fog clears from the laser show).

Of course both facilities were showing presentations about the eclipse; somehow, despite their being in German, we understood the presentation!

The laser show at the Forum der Technik was easily one of the best we've ever seen -- and in Europe, the lasers can scan the audience, so it really was an immersive -- bedazzling -- experience!