268 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 195 7 



FELS PLANETARIUM 



Shortly after the Adler Planetarium and Astronomical Museum 

 was opened, the announcement was made that Philadelphia would 

 have the privilege of being the second city in the United States to 

 possess a Zeiss planetarium. Samuel S. Fels, the great philanthropist 

 of that city, impressed with the educational value of the planetarium, 

 donated a large sum for the purpose. The new installation was em- 

 bodied in the new Franklin Memorial and the Franklin Institute 

 Museum. The city of Philadelphia set aside a whole city block just 

 a few minutes from the City Hall and adjacent to Logan Circle. The 

 planetarium has its home in that section of the Museum building 

 which is devoted to astronomy. It has a separate outside entrance 

 and can be operated separately from the Museum if desired. 



A strong feature is the observatory. In addition to the projection 

 theater, there is a rooftop dome housing a 250-mm. Zeiss refracting 

 telescope especially fitted out for lecturing and demonstration. Many 

 evening performances in the dome are supplemented by a visit to the 

 observatory for first-hand contact with the real sky. 



The Fels Planetarium has established itself through the years as a 

 leader in the offering of special astronomy lectures for school groups. 

 The Philadelphia Board of Education has had the foresight to recog- 

 nize the unequaled educational value of the planetarium, especially if 

 the lectures offered in it are integrated with the curriculum in the 

 schools. To facilitate the scheduling of such school groups at a time 

 most valuable to them with respect to their progress in science, the 

 Board has placed employees at the Franklin Institute. Most other 

 planetariums have offered similar programs for the youth of the 

 area they serve, but none is better planned or organized than in 

 Philadelphia. 



GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY AND PLANETARIUM 



Still another planetarium was opened to the public on May 14, 1935, 

 in Los Angeles, Calif. It was a present to the City of Los Angeles 

 provided for in the will of Col. Griffith J. Griffith. Like its prede- 

 cessors in Chicago and Philadelphia, it featured the Zeiss projection 

 planetarium, and like Chicago it was city owned and operated. Like 

 Philadelphia, it possessed an observatory. The observatory was al- 

 lotted architecturally as much prominence as the projection theater, 

 and the organization became known as the Griffith Observatory. 



The principal instrument in the observatory proper is a Zeiss 12- 

 inch refractor. There is also a coelostat telescope which produces a 

 large image of the sun on a screen in the Hall of Science. In the 

 Hall of Science, in addition to the solar image, there are more than 



