[AZ-Observing] Re: "Seeing in the Dark" Aired Sept 19
- From: "Spencer, Darrell" <DSpencer@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:01:19 -0700
And my interest was piqued by the ease with which the huge, old
refractor at Harvard could be manually moved. Old school indeed. If
only my 10 inch dob were so smooth.
Darrell Spencer
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of gene lucas
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:05 AM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: "Seeing in the Dark" Aired Sept 19
Caught the show tonite on Channel 8 at 11 pm. If you missed it, you=20
will find it excellent, and will want to catch one of the repeat=20
broadcasts coming up. I have Timothy Ferris' book, so I was looking=20
forward to the program. Many of his quotes were quite good. The=20
statement about the enormous time difference for the light coming from=20
the two sides of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) gave a new outlook for me. =20
The astrophoto sequences and the material on "cutting edge" research was
right up to snuff, and shows what some amateurs are capable of doing=20
these days. The production values were good, not very "Hollywood", but=20
the interviews were very personable. I am lucky enough to have met a=20
few of the people interviewed during the program, which made it the more
interesting. For instance, the three Bisque brothers, who were shown=20
installing their telescope equipment in New Mexico for internet access.=20
The Bisque family (there are more siblings at home in Colorado in the=20
business) have not only developed the leading software planetarium (sky=20
map) and telescope control program (The Sky), but have also built a=20
state-of-the-art CNC machine shop to manufacture leading edge,=20
computer-controlled telescope mounts!
I particularly enjoyed seeing the 1950s "growing up" sequences from=20
South Florida, and the scenes from the Stellafane conference in Vermont.
I grew up during the same era in Fort Myers, Florida, and made my first=20
telescope in Jr. High and showed it at Stellafane in 1962 !!
Gene Lucas (17250)
Jimmy Ray wrote:
>Tomorrow night (19 Sept) Timothy Ferris's new documentary "Seeing in
the Dark" will be on PBS (chan 8 in PHX) at 8 PM. Your September issue
of "Astronomy" has a two page write up on it. Looks like it could be
pretty neat. Of course it just got cool outside and the sky is
clear....... (may be a moment that those TeVo thingys are made for)
>Jimmy Ray=20
>
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