IVT (William Day Planetarium) under construction in 1969: 

Zeiss Starball:

 

Zeiss Starball, the old optical-mechanical constellation projection system originally installed in the William Day Planetarium. The Zeiss-Kleinplanetarium Nr. 1 (ZKP1) Star Ball, had 39 lenses projecting 5000 stars. Manufactured by Carl Zeiss Jena, between 1952-1977. More information on Planetarium projection systems etc can be found here: Le Passage – Towards the Concept of a New Knowledge Instrument by Isabella Beyer.

Dr Percy Seymour:

Dr Percy Seymour (1938-2020) was the Director of the William Day Planetarium until the early 2000’s. Previously a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, he has published many books and engaged in some interesting debates around cosmic influences. Some of these are discussed here: Times Higher Education 1996 and The Guardian, 2004. Ad Astra!

Captain William Vyvyan Day.

Obituary from the Royal Astronomical Society Journal 1978:

William Vyvyan Day was ·born in 1921 June and went to sea in 1937 as an officer cadet. During the Second World War he served on the Atlantic convoys. In 1946 he gained his certificate as a Master Mariner, and he was a member of the South West Company of Master Mariners. Bill’s major contribution to astronomy was in higher education. He Joined the School of Navigation at Plymouth Polytechnic as a lecturer in 1949. His growing interest in astronomical education and his ability to stimulate that interest in the young led to proposals to construct a planetarium at the. Polytechnic. The college and the local education authority backed Bill’s judgement and he was put in charge of the planetarium when it was built in 1969. There are very few planetaria in the British Isles. Bill Day showed how a man with energy and dedication can improve on this lamentable state of affairs.

Although the planetarium is an aid in teaching those elements of positional astronomy that are essential to navigation, its value goes far beyond that. At Plymouth, Bill designed courses that would appeal to the schools as well as the Polytechnic. In only seven years he lectured to at least 6000 people in the planetarium and built up wide following for astronomy in the Plymouth area.

In 1976 he visited East Germany to see the Zeiss works, the Leipzig Fair and various planetaria in order to formulate plans for further development. He was anxious to establish a teaching observatory on a reasonable site not too far from Plymouth. In 1976 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He died in 1977, aged 55, after a short illness.

On 1977 October 8, Captain Day’s widow Valerie and his children Simon and Sarah attended a ceremony at the Polytechnic at which the planetarium was re-named The William Day Planetarium. The citation describes Captain Day as a ‘seaman, navigator, astronomer, principal lecturer in astronomy, designer of this planetarium, but above all a teacher who inspired all who knew him’.

Simon Mitton

@ Royal Astronomical Society. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System.