Background
He was born on 23 January 1879 in Berlin.
He was born on 23 January 1879 in Berlin.
Bauersfeld completed the first planetarium, known as the Zeiss I model in 1923, and it was initially placed on the roof of a Zeiss building in the corporate headquarters town of Jena.
He was employed by the Zeiss Corporation, who, on a suggestion by the German astronomer Max Wolf, started work on the first projection planetarium in 1912. This work was stopped by military needs during World War I, but resumed after the war. This model projected 4,900 stars, and was limited to showing the sky only from Jena"s latitude.
Subsequently, Bauersfeld developed the Model 2 with 8,956 stars, and full latitude capability.
Over a dozen were installed before World World War II again suspended planetarium work. These inter-war planetariums were built in Berlin and Düsseldorf in Germany, as well as Rome, Paris, Chicago, Los Angeles and New New York
The Zeiss I planetarium in Jena is also considered the first geodesic dome derived from the icosahedron, more than 20 years before Buckminster Fuller reinvented and popularized this design. Post-war, the Zeiss firm, like Germany, divided in two.
Bauersfeld remained with the core firm in Jena, East Germany, where after 1953 he developed the ZKP-1 (Zeisskleinplanetarium, the Zeiss Small Planetarium #1).
The ZKP-2 added a motor for latitude change. Bauersfeld retired shortly after the ZKP-2 was introduced. He died on 28 October 1959 in Heidenheim an der Brenz
A monthly newsletter named in Walther Bauersfeld"s honor, "Bauersfeld"s Folly", was circulated to mostly North American planetariums 1973 to 1983.
Asteroid 1553 Bauersfelda was named in his honor.