Finding the sun in the sky isn't too hard. But finding it among an outdoor display of planets along Route One in northern Maine has been more of a challenge. That's because, unlike the other 3-D outdoor spheres, the much-larger sun has, until now, been a painting on a wall of a classroom building at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
That may soon change. Retired Professor Kevin McCartney says there are plans to construct a 3-D model of part of the sun and place it outside at the proper distance from the other planets.
McCartney says "[Some tourists] get on campus, and it's a small campus, but they get disoriented and I've had so many people tell me, 'Oh, we just saw some people and had to show them the sun.'"
Building a sun to the scale of the other planets would require a sphere 46 feet across. So, instead, plans are to depict, at scale, one quarter of the sun's northern hemisphere. Even that will cost $55,000 to construct and mount.
McCartney says he's raised about $8,000 so far and would like to have the rest in hand by mid-November. That would allow foundation work to begin in time so that the project is complete by next April 8th. That's the date a total solar eclipse will be visible from northwestern Maine.