Solar System

The Idea

My initial idea was to tie in various elements of my work at Red Spark Learning at Grange Court in leominster, where we teach adults, amongst other things, IT and spreadsheets. I wanted to somehow connect Leominster's 3 tourist spots, Grange Court, the Priory Church and the Museum, plus some great pubs, by having life size representations of the planets, at each of those locations, all to scale, in size and distance from the Sun.


How

Firstly I wanted the Sun to be at the newly erected sun-dial at Grange Court. I then checked the distance to the church to see that if I located earth there, would it scale up to give me other 'to scale' locations for the planets at desirable spots. With a fudge factor of the orbits being elliptical, I think I achieved it.


Planetarium

I decided that the Sun would be at the Sun-Dial recently erected in front of Grange Court

I wanted Earth to be at the location of the Priory, which would be how the church believed the earth was at the centre of the solar system.

I really wanted the planets to then, to scale, be at interesting positions (i.e. in a pub).

I drew concentric circles to scale and overlaid them on Google Earth. With a bit of tweaking and a fudge factor due to the elliptical paths I got :