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Quis custodiet the custard?
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This is a remote control telescope that you put on your roof that has a full hemispherical range of vision on it.
You turn it on, it folds into position, and then you use a joystick to aim the telescope in any direction within that hemispherical range, use one button for zooming in and the other
button for zooming out while the image is being broadcasted down to a receiver which plugs into your very own TV. You could use a GPS to program in the directional coordinates so that you know which direction you're looking in which is being displayed on a digital compass and angle of elevation key on the lower right hands side of your TV screen. When you turn it off, the telescope automatically folds back up into weather proof shell.
Once you've calibrated all that, you should also be able to download the seasonal star charts and daily moon position, as well as the positions of any incoming comets so that your telescope could track exact positions from your roof.
Celestial Ceilings.
http://spoonercreat..._ceilings_home.html
if you could connect this set-up to your ceiling, you'd have real *sky* indoors, instead of one made out of fiber optics. [pyggy potamus, Dec 28 2007]
http://www.global-rent-a-scope.com/
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 30 2007]
[link]
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This is pretty well baked as all you are doing is adding a video camera onto a remotely controlled telescope and then doing the weatherproof roof mount. Most of the good scopes have motorized controlers, so that once calibrated, thy can find any star and stay on it thru the night. The video link is also baked though I doubt they do it wirelessly for quality reasons. So the only even slighty unique part if the weather proof housing and permanent installation.
I'll have to find a link, but I think there are sites on the web where you can see thru and control someone elses scope, so they must have solved the weather issue too. |
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For many years Bradford University has had a robototic telescope atop the Yorkshire Moors in the area where Wuthering Heights was set - I think they've probably got the weatherproofing sorted. |
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Yes, if not actually Baked, then the oven is hot and the dough is rising...... all the bits for this are available off the shelf, just a matter of putting them together. |
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I want to turn the TV onto channel 1 and have a beautiful view of the moon or mars in realtime with the touch of a joystick. |
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Link your TV to the Web and log on to any number of telescopes around the world. |
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Why this obsessison with doing everything from one's armchair ? Why not, if it's a clear night, go outside with your telescope and actually look directly at the actual real object with your own actual eyes ? Freezing your particulates off at 0330 to get a view of a comet or a planetary conjunction is good for the soul (if any). |
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Because the best unobstructed view is on top of the roof of the house (unless you want to drive out to an unpopulated area). It's quick and is fully automated. It's personal as this is a private roof telescope. If people had easy access to casual use roof telescopes then comets and supernovas would be discovered more quickly and more often throughout the world. Also, most people turn to their TV's for entertainment, so it's just fitting to be able to watch the sky at night without having to go outside in the cold and set up a telescope. Sure, there would be occasional maintenence, but that always occurs whenever you use something a lot. |
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I will never forget going out with my college astronomy lab class to Joshua Tree National Park in the California desert on a pitch black moonless night in the middle of May with six or seven 8" telescopes, freezing my nose off of my face, the stars so abundant they almost itched, and viewing Saturn, various nebulae, and other celestial wonders - it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. |
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// occasional maintenence, but that always occurs whenever you use something a lot. // |
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You got the low-maintainance model brain, then ? |
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(sorry, couldn't resist....) |
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The killer, in urban environments, would be light pollution. You might spot the odd supernova, but that's about it. |
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Well, air pollution is another reason why we all need to push for a working hydrogen economy. Also, I think there are some cities that actually have light pollution laws specifically for the sky watchers. If your city doesn't, then it's just a matter of localized political action to attain these regulations in your county (street lights have shields on them and have a lower wattage, stoplights have unidirectional LED diodes instead of glaring fluorescence, et al). |
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I thought the entire roof would be a telescope lens. |
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// localized political action // |
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... or perhaps an airgun. |
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My light pollution comes from NYC, so I'd need more than a airgun. Even my buddy's RWS is probably useless for anything higher than a street light. |
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//air pollution is another reason why we all need to push for a working hydrogen economy//
Interesting point, but unless we all use fuel cells, burning hydrogen in air is still going to produce nitrogen compounds, and these are going to cause problems for clarity of atmosphere. |
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My light pollution comes from a billboard, with four 500-watt HID lamps, lighting up a banner proclaiming "fightglobalwarming.com". I don't know where to aim. |
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<points meaningfully at other HBers> |
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<holds up large concave circular shiny thing with fingers crossed> |
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If you live in NY, then aim your telescope at the full moon in your neighbor's window. It's the same principle (joystick/channel 1) but you don't get to see any planets though. |
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Totally defeats the purpose of asking a pretty girl to go out and look at stars with you... |
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Is that a good pick up line!? Sweet! |
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A lot of amateur astronomers have built these. They tend to put them in the garden as the roof is too inaccessible and doesn't have any advantages. There isn't a one-stop solution on the market, but that's the only difference. |
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Light pollution is a major problem. You'd be amazed how many stars there are when there's no major city within 150km. |
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I know what you mean, but I couldn't resist noting that most stars don't have a major city near them... |
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Yeah, our city is 150 _million_ km from a star, but when it is shining, you can't see any other stars. |
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{resolution, theta, phi} @ (GPS 1, time 1)
=> {r*cos(th)sin(p), r*sin(th)sin(p), r*cos(p)} @ (GPS 1, time 1)
where {theta=0 ->east & phi=0 -> up} |
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Perhaps a whole network of roof telescopes could log discoveries in that way....hmmm, finding a comet at GPS 2 should always be within some kind of offset of GPS 1. (i.e. South Africa's down is Europe's up; discoveries made within the celestial plane would be more south, north of the equator, and more north, south of the equator; phi angle would have to compensate for the oblateness of the Earth; everything changes position with time of day, change in Earth orbit, and the translation of the object of discovery; etc)....but this shouldn't be a problem. |
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// this shouldn't be a problem // |
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For astronomers, no. For idiots, yes. Which sort are you ... ? |
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A friend of mine tells me that this is pretty much baked by this [link]. |
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//I couldn't resist noting that most stars don't have a major city near them...// |
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<pedant> You don't know that for certain, unless you've been and visited them all. </p> |
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//For astronomers, no. For idiots, yes. Which sort are you ... ?//
I'm just an idea guy who happens to write a lot of bad science fiction....so, maybe that indeed does make me an idiot. All I really know, is that I know nothing until I do my research and then become an expert, which makes me realize I know nothing once again when I extrapolate and say something stupid....science is humiliating that way! |
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//{r*cos(th)sin(p), r*sin(th)sin(p), r*cos(p)} @ (GPS 1, time 1)//
For instance, I'm making an assumption above that there is some kind of linear relationship between the actual distance of an object and the resolution of that particular object, which may very well be a poor extrapolation from logging a discovered position in the sky as per...
//{resolution, theta, phi} @ (GPS 1, time 1)//
...but it's probably close enough, and I thought it was kind of clever. Computers should be able to do the mathematical predictions when given the logged coordinates of multiple observers at multiple times. That's what I meant by "this shouldn't be a problem" when tracking an object in the sky. |
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