Amazing orrery

My friend Chris commission a custom made orrery from Fayetteville, Arkansas based artist and craftsman Eugene Sargent, it’s stunning. Chris writes –

It was several months in the making, but the waiting was worth it. The Orrery has arrived and it is absolutely stunning.

Eugene did an amazing job, and I think he had fun making it because he’s hinting he may make another one, perhaps to sell…

We got a kick out of the packaging when it showed up with an “Orrery Manufacturing Co.” painted on the crate. We were worried about how well such an intricate little piece of useless machinery would survive shipment but the way it was crated up it could have survived anything. Seriously- the packaging was almost as complex as the device itself.

We pulled it out and set it up right away. The only “assembly” on our end was taking all the planets from the “planet box” and putting them into position (we did end up going out to Saturn). The planets are hand painted and glazed porcelain. I wasn’t sure how that would look but actually they turned out pretty great I think. There’s an interesting three-dimensional appearance to the planet surfaces as a result of the glazing.

Amazing orrery – Link.

Related:
Eugene Sargent’s site, great stuff there – Link.