>I'm impressed... >http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070628.html >I've just put my 8 inch scope in the trash can !!! Thanks for the chuckle! ... or how to make a good satellite photography system: The telescope used to take this picture is a 15 minute drive from my house and I have visited it about 6 times. It belongs to a private school for K-12 (this isn't the only impressive part of the school by a long shot - this is a very rich school). The telescope has a mirror that was ground to much better smoothness and figure than typical mirrors of it's size (25 inches). The telescope has an active adaptive optics system that corrects only in x and y (some adaptive optics systems have hundreds of correctors). According to Ron Dantowitz who runs the telescope a single corrector fixes most of the atmospheric distortion. I don't know if this system works with photographs like this one where there is no reference star. But the seeing is very good at this location - the telescope is mounted on the roof of a 4 story building (with a pier that runs through all 4 floors into granite below - vibrationally separate from the rest of the school) and this building is on top of a hill, and typical winds run over a large farmer's field before hitting the hill. All this reduces turbulence. This telescope is used by the Navy each night remotely (after Ron goes home) to search for planets around other stars using laser-spectroscopy and Ron seems to think it is the most accurate device on our planet for this purpose because of the telescope's unique features. Located about 8 miles from light polluted Boston - obviously one can do serious astronomy in light polluted skies. There is a picture of the building (and the telescope dome) in the upper corner of this web page: http://www.dexter-southfield.org/podium/default.aspx?t=10557 - George Roberts http://gr5.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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