Posts Made By: jess tauber

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100330/sc_afp/usclimatewarmingcompanykoch_20100330061252

Denying GW can be fun AND profitable!

Jess Tauber

...I'm not responsible, and you can't make me be, since I'm a head of state, and besides, those bishops and archbishops don't work for me, even if I call the shots.... :S

Takers?

Jess Tauber

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100401101527.htm

Apparently at least some researchers believe that the mother body of the Tagish Lake meteorite was responsible for wiping out the North American megafauna, and not a few Paleo-Indians.

Instead of one big bolide, the earth passed through space-strewn debris, resulting in thousands of smaller hits all over the place in a small time frame. What a bad hair day that would have been, particularly for the woolly mammoth, but imagine- a REAL meteor shower! The Meteorite Men would have to run for cover. Good luck with that....

Jess Tauber

Hi. Could one of these systems be used to "grind" out a proper figure in the first place? What about micro- or nano-scale particulates in suspension, or materials at the edge of solubility (salts for instance) which would just begin to crystallize as the jet hit the surface of the blank?

I had begun to think about this several weeks ago but put it aside- glad others are interested as well. Thanks.

Jess Tauber
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For those who would like to see a diagram of a cylindrical mirror scope here are links to the pages I originally found on the WWW (through a search on Google):

This first one is by the fellow who won't be building this anytime soon...
http://bruno.postle.net/neatstuff/telescope/

The next is a short abstract of an article by the fellow from India, Dr. Ramesh Balasubramanyam. I wrote to him and got an offprint.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/mnr/2004/00000354/00000004/art00025

Here is a link to the call for papers from the upcoming conference UV/OPTICAL/IR SPACE TELESCOPES: INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND CONCEPTS II (OEI131) where they are interested in cylinder mirrors, among other things.
http://www.spie.org/Conferences/Calls/05/am/submitAbstract/index.cfm?fuseaction=OEI131

Read here about the how orthogonal cylindrical mirrors were used in some of the first x-ray scopes:
http://www.roe.ac.uk/~jcm/thesis/node41.html

Cylindrical corrections:
http://www.ep3.uni-halle.de/user/heino/astro/yolooptic/

There is plenty of stuff on the web about uses of cylindrical mirrors but it gets further and further afield of my main goal, which is ATM-oriented.

Many thanks to all of you who have provided useful info and insight.
Jess Tauber

Has anyone ever thought of using some sort of peel-off, polymerizing liquid screen (like collodion), but optically transparent? It would be applied directly to the mirrors, and then peeled off for your next session. It would be like having new mirrors every time, with little chance for damage. Just a crazy idea...

Jess Tauber

I posted the same issues to CloudyNight's deep sky discussion and apparently it is a concensus that ellipticals are OLD, and are themselves often found at the centers of galactic clusters. Spirals are found further out, along with irregulars and dwarf systems.

Sans having read the works suggested to me, it seemed that if the above structural trend is correct, it sort of parallels the structure of some galaxies themselves, just on a vaster, and more distributed, scale.

Dwarf galaxies resemble large, but loose globular clusters and are on the outskirts of the galactic clusters. Irregulars and spirals would perhaps find an analogue in gaseous nebuli and fresh star clusters within galactic arms.

The central bulges of spirals would then be analagous to elliptical galaxies.

The interesting thing here is that at both scales, very old stars are more common at the center and the very outskirts, and young ones in between, where there is more traffic?

It almost reminds me of planetary plate tectonic recycling and convection circuits. Since planets CAN get thrown clear of their parent stars if circumstances are right, I wonder whether stars (or groups of them, or their quasar-blasted remains) at the centers of galaxies ever manage to wend their way to the outside zone, and if dynamics are ever right to provide a conveyor belt to the center. Could the reworking of galactic innards be a bit more involved than the "snapshot" prejudice might expect?

Jess Tauber

Another pair of these went by on e**y today, and I was going to get that pair for my brother ($60 shipped!), but my computer screwed up. Damme!

But at least the sky cleared up brilliantly after the storm (from Katrina?) passed by last night- water everywhere here in New Jersey but not a cloud left in the sky. Found a quiet unlit spot a couple of miles away and just spent the hours looking through the Milky Way, star cluster, etc. Orion came up before dawn. At home that whole part of the sky is blocked by woods, so it was an eye-opener.

M31 was much brighter than usual, and I was able to see some other galaxies (not the normal case) overhead, though still rather dimly, mostly with averted vision.

The double cluster was fantastic- as nice as in my 8-inch reflector. Cygnus was almost over the mountains in the West before everything cleared up- it probably would have been nice.

This pair of binoculars is so nice that, if it weren't so damned heavy, I'd hang em from my hat! So I'm building a parallelogram mount for them- got me a nice tripod that extends to over seven feet, heavy duty construction.

I was really looking forward to the other pair- when visiting my brother we could have used them as counterweights against each other on the p-mount.

As dawn loomed I went home- but rather than call it a *day* I grabbed my ancient Tasco 60mm to watch Mars until it too sailed over the treetops into obscurity. Some of the local neighbors wondered what I could be looking at in the now blue sky and were amazed at being able to see the planet at all- totally invisible without the scope.

All in all a great night. I'm just sorry that its likely provider has also caused so much heartache along the Gulf.

Jess Tauber

It would be nice if they can prove their case and actually come up with cheap prototypes. But there has been a LOT of hype about negatively refractive materials in the last couple of years- one wonders if a lot of it has been aimed at getting or renewing nice fat grants.

Jess Tauber

OOPS- my mind is playing tricks on me- they're 15x80! Still no other listings on A-mart for this combination of mag/ap.

Jess Tauber