I isolated the painting and straightened the perspective before feeding the image to Tineye, but no matches. It is obviously an illustration of an armillary sphere. I've seen uncounted numbers of such illustrations from old astronomy books and maps, but I couldn't tell you exactly which one this is. And this is more than just a sketch of the device—it is decoratively "illuminated" all around, probably the front plate from a book.
I isolated the painting and straightened the perspective before feeding the image to Tineye, but no matches. It is obviously an illustration of an armillary sphere. I've seen uncounted numbers of such illustrations from old astronomy books and maps, but I couldn't tell you exactly which one this is. And this is more than just a sketch of the device—it is decoratively "illuminated" all around, probably the front plate from a book.
"Famous"? I doubt it.
Thanks, Metryq. I should have known you'd have tools for this job. And you knew what it's a picture of, whereas I don't think I ever heard the term armillary sphere (and I'm off to Wiki).
I'm reminded of a question that came up among highly dedicated model builders when the Moebius Jupiter 2 kit was new. They wanted to know where the solar system painting came from so they could replicate it to scale:
And finally they nailed it. It was a cropped page from the Space Exploration chapter of a particular edition of the Rand McNally World Atlas.
I'd sure get a kick out of identifying the McMann & Tate print.
You beat me to it! I found this image, also crediting Andreas Cellarius
I have wanted to know what that thing was for 35 years. I made a sketch of it from the TV show as a kid. Five minutes with Metryq, problem solved. And I'm saving that bigger image you pointed to. Thanks!
Son of a gun! Believe it or not, I was running George Pal's 1960 The Time Machine in the background while reading the forum. The Time Traveler briefly stops to look at an armillary sphere-like thing in the museum before Weena pulls him on to the "talking rings." I've seen that a hundred times and never gave it any thought, then Zap's post about the Cellarius illustration focussed my attention on it...
and I knew I had seen it before. Same studio, just four years earlier—if Robby, the ship costumes, sidearms, and other props can be scattered all over other productions for years following, I don't see why the C-57D's navigational tank from Forbidden Planet should be immune.
Very cool, indeed! I haven't had the 35 years of obsession with this art that Zap has, but I was still quite interested in everything here. Metryq, you rock!
Nice photos, Montag. The first photo also features the power gauges from the Krell machine. And I think the circular screen may be from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.
The other photos are unquestionably the landing gear from the C-57D. (The C-57D appeared in name only in the FIREFLY movie sequel, SERENITY, as the call letters of the crashed rescue vessel. The same designation is on a smaller craft that Jayne inspects.)
Son of a gun! Believe it or not, I was running George Pal's 1960 The Time Machine in the background while reading the forum. The Time Traveler briefly stops to look at an armillary sphere-like thing in the museum before Weena pulls him on to the "talking rings." I've seen that a hundred times and never gave it any thought, then Zap's post about the Cellarius illustration focussed my attention on it...
and I knew I had seen it before. Same studio, just four years earlier—if Robby, the ship costumes, sidearms, and other props can be scattered all over other productions for years following, I don't see why the C-57D's navigational tank from Forbidden Planet should be immune.
Get out of here! I just watched The Time Machine and was going to comment on this and found this page! I also noticed one of the "futuristic" cops or army personal in 1966 was wearing a D-57-D crew uniform.
Anyone else noticed how much the interior of the Jupiter 2 top deck is taken from D-57-C's bridge design?
