by Eric Bogatin | Feb 24, 2013 | Astonishing Science News
This is part 1. The properties of telescopes are often presented in a confusing way. In fact, it is simple if you keep in mind what a telescope is really doing. Fundamentally, all objects being viewed in the sky are at infinity. In other words, all the light rays from...
by Eric Bogatin | Feb 24, 2013 | Astonishing Science News
This is part 2. To read part 1, click here. The focal length of a mirror system is a direct measure of the translation of the angular size of an object to its spatial size on the image plane. In part 1 we saw that s = FL x a where s = spatial size of image on focal...
by Eric Bogatin | Feb 24, 2013 | Astonishing Science News, Inspiration, Life 201
If you missed out on summer camp as a kid, as I did, it’s not too late. But this time, you don’t have to rough it. For the last few years, I’ve attended various star parties during the summer. These are gatherings of enthusiastic amateur astronomers (not all of whom...
by Eric Bogatin | Feb 24, 2013 | Astonishing Science News, Inspiration, Life 201
“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house… ” is the way the classic poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr. 1748 – 1828, begins. Over the years, 849 variations have been created each with different spins and Matthew Monroe has...
by Eric Bogatin | Feb 24, 2013 | Astonishing Science News
The earth rotates, sweeping the star field across the sky. If we take a long exposure of the stars, with the camera stationary, the stars will appear as star trails in the image. We can estimate the length of the trail on our image. This is a useful number if we want...
by Eric Bogatin | Feb 23, 2013 | Astonishing Science News, What Works
When you are all alone in the middle of the wilderness, how do you hook-up a camper to your car’s hitching ball? If the camper is not secured, you will be stranded in the middle of nowhere. I found a simple method, using a web cam dangling from the back of the...
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