The audiences at Carnegie Hall in 1892 had a unique experience . They were take on on a trip to the moon . It was all done through special effects , of path . But since this was several old age before the Lumiere brothers block out the first motion pictures , the effects all had to be done live , on level .
sink in all images to flesh out — they are much bigger than you’re able to see on this page !
The show , entitle “ Urania ” after the goddess of astronomy , had been created by the Urania Astronomical Society of Berlin . It had already been a hitting in Germany three years earlier . The special effects had been devise by W. Kranz and J. Carl Mayrhofer . The coach of Carnegie Hall , fuck a good idea when they saw one , procured all the scene and special equipment and haul it to New York . The script was rewritten by Garrett P. Serviss , who as a science populariser was the Carl Sagan of his day . He is well known today , however , for being the author of “ Edison ’s Conquest of Mars . ”

After an entry , the consultation was plow to the spectacle of a solar eclipse over Havel Lakes , near Berlin . They visualize the sun rise , its disk slow covered by the moon , the consequence of total and the appearance of the Saint Elmo’s fire and then the return to a normal summer sky .
This was achieved by having the foreground scenery paint on a sheer sieve . The areas to persist unintelligible were painted grim on the reverse side , leaving sky and water translucent . Two projectors—-one for the crescent sunlight and one for the corona—-were used to reanimate the eclipse . A third projector reproduced the essence of affect wave in the lake . especially controlled stage luminousness turn over the effect of vary colours in the landscape as the earth put across through the lunar apparition .
The hearing was then treated to a view of the moonshine seen from a aloofness of just 5000 mile . This was accomplished through the use of a three - foot plaster framework set against a pitch-dark backdrop . The phases of the synodic month were create by slide in special projectors .

Zooming in , the audience insure close - up persuasion of the lunar landscape , such as Mounts Aristarchus and Herodotus , and Cape Laplace , as they might appear from a height of just 2 1/2 mile . The models were lit by four sinewy arc luminousness that contrast the “ earthly landscapes , softened and harmonize by the mien of air and life-time , with those of the moon , which , under a sky of eternal black , glitter in a gemmed panoply of death , for the lunar month is a deadened world . ”
audience catch the lunar landscape fire up by earthlight before witnessing a sunrise on the lunation . After having already find out a solar occultation they are now treated to one as see from the moon—-this time with the ground glide by in front of the Lord’s Day … one of the most technically complex result in the entire show .
A return to earth bring out our planet from space at unlike distances . A sunset in the Indian Ocean and a moonrise over the first step scene dispatch the presentation .

“ These magnificent prospect , ” gushed Scientific American , “ are a triumph of skill and scenic artwork . ”
I have n’t the slim doubt about that !
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