Mirror lens

[David Kilpatrick]

I could answer anything - late in 2006, Patrick Moore's agent emailed me offering one of the last 20 existing first editions prints of his 1969 Map of the Moon signed by Sir Patrick himself for £50. Needless to say, I jumped on this one, and got it framed. It is one of our larger framed pictures.

shot by A700 just now...

David

[KevinBarrett]

Ooh, that's just the kind of thing I'd love on my wall! My wife and I need to look around for some good nerdy wall decorations/reference material.

[David Kilpatrick]

In the cellar we have a HUGE mounted Periodic Table of the Elements. It is a bit beaten up now - but it was something we wanted to have on the wall when our kids were growing up. Shirley can almost recite the entire periodic table anyway, just the same way that she can correct any taxonomy error or produce either an organic or inorganic formula for any substance based only on hearing its name. But - hell, I can spell about 20 per cent of 15th century Scots language, and that's FAR more useful!

I grew up with amazing stuff. On my school wall there was a world map which showed the Cook Islands (used for a TV docu-game-thing castaway show). They were labelled 'Existence Uncertain'. Now, I liked that. The world still presented some reason to be here, when the existence of islands could be uncertain! Now we know everything, there is nothing to cause wonder. Patrick Moore's map is the last fling of manual art drawing the Moon before everything become a computer mapping exercise.

Dream - to retire to a place which Google Earth can't see...

David

[KevinBarrett]

I grew up just a mile from a naval air station. My parents worked close to there doing technical illustrations for a military contractor, so I was in all kinds of technical awe all the time. I drew airplanes and dinosaurs and especially rocket-ships and mars habitats. My brother and I built an 8" mirror telescope taller than ourselves as teenagers, and speculated on the nature of space and time. Now my wife and I are looking forward to homeschooling our children (whenever they come along), and we're always on the lookout for resources to have around for their busy eyes and ears.

[Winston]

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Dream - to retire to a place which Google Earth can't see...
David

Any basement, cave, tunnel or large sewer pipe should do it

[Greg Beetham]

David you sure know how too turn someone green
a signed Moon map drawn by Sir Patrick Moore....wow, that is something!

Just by way of revenge I should give you a couple of tough ones..... like which Apollo landed close too Hadley rille, or what is the name of the valley that connects Mare Frigoris to Mare Imbrium, or which Sinus is the Triesnecker rilles located in?
but I won't, that would be petty.

Speaking of chemical equations, I once had a passing curiousity as too what the equation for the Space Shuttle's Hypergolic fuel system would look like, after I heard the name of the self igniting components. (just by being injected at one another in a rocket chamber), very exotic stuff and also very dangerous, kept in titanium fuel cells, apparently so corrosive it was the only metal that could contain it.
Part A was, Monomethyl Hydrazine
Part B was, Nitrogen Tetroxide
I don't expect Shirley too know that stuff, just thought some space chemistry might be interesting.

I don't know what everyone else thinks but that M-theory looks like vaporware, a pile of mathematical waffle. Unless you can describe the properties of all those dimensions, (that are part of the theory) so they have some relevance, it's pretty much meaningless....I think.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

She just muttered something about CH3 must be in one of them and the other was unstable, and 'ten years ago I could have worked it out', before confirming the shape of monomethyl hydrazine by the usual scientific method - Google. Shirley's bet is that the nitrogen tetroxide must be kept in titanium. The other one looks like a nice lens cleaning solution. No idea of the reaction equation, just looks like an explosion When the first space engineering was happening my eldest brother went to the USA - this would be around 1964. He brought back some short titanium rods and it was the first time we had held/seen this incredibly light metal which could not the engineered on the lathe. I gave some to my school which had samples of every element in jars (including some you would not now be allowed to go near now) but no titanium.

Alpine Valley and Sinus Medii according to Moore's map. He appears to have drawn an original, and the artwork was prepared - looking at it, I would guess on two sheets of Kodatrace using Indian ink and ruby film or photopaque for direct platemaking - by Patricia A. Cullen. A lot of the charm of it is the calligraphic lettering. The Lunar features are far more roughly drawn than the lettering, I would guess those are Moore's drawings transferred by Cullen and traced to a constant weight. This year we have not had many nights with a good clear Moon. I've never tried the 500mm mirror on the A350 - the extra resolution would be useful.

David

[RobbieA]

Coming back to the pic of the moon. Just looking at the pics posted and my pic of the moon, yours seem upside down! my imagination? I am in the southern hemisphere and you in the northern. Does this have anything to do with it?

[Birma]

I just wanted to say how I think the moon shots posted so far are fantasitic. Literally other-worldy. The detail in them is great. Perhaps I have caught some form of lycanthropy, but I can't wait for the next opportunity to try something like this.

Arrrroooooowwww!

[Greg Beetham]

The various views of the moon can get a bit hard too untangle, you've got north and south earth hemisphere views and wheather it was taken with a telescope or a lens, and even which side of the zenith it was, at the time, and there is also a difference between telescopes, from memory I think a Newtonian flips and flops the image once each and a cassergrain flips flops and flips again for a total of three times (if you are using a diagonal mirror), so it ends up being corrected again one way, but still reversed another.....I think...whithout checking.
The "normal" view I remember the most, from my location, either naked eye or with binoculars and therefore corrected, is with Tycho on the bottom-ish and Procellarum on the left-ish, but tilted over, top too the left, and the time of view being, facing east after moonrise.
Greg

Lens cleaning solution...ha ha! ....but it sounds right actually, when you stop and think about it, the Monomethyl Hydrazine that is.

[Birma]

A link for all you moon shooters http://mirrorlens.blogspot.com/2007/09/ ... -5008.html . This site (also interesting for mirror reflex info. in general) mentions an interesting technique of "stacking". Anyone else tried this?