Quartz Crystal Ball

Quartz Crystal Ball

This is a huge, 6" diameter, solid quartz crystal ball. It comes complete with a padded wooden stand as shown above.
It is impressive - and heavy (10 pounds!). It is a great spherical lens - and one thing you need to be aware of is the potential of a fire by placing or moving this thing in sunlight. It can quickly burn you or possibly start a fire at its focal point, so choose a place out of the sun to store it.
No, we haven't been able to produce any supernatural effects with it , although Joy did give it an honest try (see below).



Our technician wanted to fire multiple lasers into it - but we haven't tried that.

An interesting project you can make with it is known as a Sunshine Recorder. You would need to fashion some sort of clamp to hold the ball and a curved surface underneath (see picture below).



As the sun rises and sets, it will burn a mark along the length of paper as it travels across the sky. It will make a continuous line if it is a perfectly clear day, but if clouds are present, there will be gaps in the burn trace. These burn tracks on paper are known as Sunshine Records. You can see an example of some Sunshine Records below.



Sunshine Recorders like the one shown above cost $400 to $500. I'm guessing any creative person who is good with tools could make a much nicer one with our larger Crystal Ball for a tiny fraction of that cost. The Crystal Ball probably has many other interesting uses, but I have to admit it just looks cool sitting there. I bought on myself and it just sits on our dresser.

Crystal Ball (with stand): $99.00