Tellurium
Restoring a planetary tellurium for the Royal Observatory Greenwich education centre.
To restore the Royal Observatory Greenwich Planetary Tellurium mechanism to full working order, including designing and building a new moon arm to replace the original.
Maintenance and rebuild
Restoration
The first phase of the project was to restore the Tellurium mechanism back to working order and improve the aesthetics. We used the Summer half term break to bring the mechanism to the workshop in order to carry out the mechanical and surface restoration.
Work was carried out over the course of the 2022 summer months whilst the ROG Education Centre was closed.
In addition to the new Tellurium Moon, the Tellurium Sun would be redesigned and rebuilt to improve the usability and visual effect. The Tellurium table would be rebuilt to have folding legs and new table graphics. Finally, the trolley and magnetic globe would be restored to improve the degraded aesthetics.
Replacement
The original mechanical arm that carried the moon had been lost, this needed replacing.
The biggest challenge was designing the moon arm with limited dimension references and a small number of photos from the original project. The requirements of the arm were to maintain the upright position of the moon whilst rotating around the earth axle. The arm also needed to facilitate the vertical movement of the moon based on a cam on the earth axle. A basic prototype was built and tested in situ with the Tellurium mechanism before it was sent back to the Royal Observatory for the remainder of the summer term.
The moon was manufactured in house, mostly by CNC Milling, with the exception of the anodising the Aluminium parts.
Renewing
The ROG also asked us to build a new tellurium table with updated graphics and a new sun mechanism to better meet their requirements.
Installation
Once all parts had been constructed and finished, the tellurium was taken back to the Royal Observatory to be installed.
This was the first time all of the new parts had been properly tested together. Some adjustments were needed but everything worked well and the clients at the Royal Observatory were thrilled to see the Tellurium back in full working order.
This project was carried out on behalf of Machine Shop Special Effects for the Royal Observatory Greenwich Education Centre.