Re: Planet X: Alternative Explanation 2

Bob May wrote:
> 
> I filter out light pollution better with my 200" 
> refractor than the Palomar 200" reflector does!  
> I guess that you really don't know what you are
> talking about when it comes to "observatory grade"
> telescopes! FWIW, I recently got some good views 
> of the sky back in midmonth that filtered out ALL
> of the light of the LA-SD lights.  Try that with 
> the Hale > scope!
> 
> --
> Bob May
> Remember that computers do exactly what you tell 
> them to do, not what you think you told them to do.

Uh, I'm sure you also have four barrel holleys on your chevy 450"^3 and
that you ground your own lenses starting from sand.  That you hand pick.

But.

[One can never be sure with some of these postings on the difference
between a wild attempt at confusion and deep subtle sarcasm, but] I
*really* don't think you have a 200" anything.  A 200" refractor could
not be built because: a) the lenses would be *SO* HUGE AND HEAVY that
the rest of the telescope would be enormous and heavy and b) the weight
of all of that glass would be inherently unstable and the glass elements
themselves would sag and distort and c) the light loss through that much
glass would be huge.  Uh uh.  You don't have one of those things.

You probably were able to get "some good views of the sky back in
midmonth that filtered out ALL of the light of the LA-SD lights" with
the windows of your family room taped black and using one of those
el-cheapo planatariums in the web catalogs while you had a black hood
over your head...

Other than that, we both know that filtering out ALL of the ambient
light with any telescope is physically impossible in a place also
consistent with breathing...  (One of the two reasons the Hubble
telescope is in space, after all.)

So what do you really have?  Do you have a CCD camera?  Tracking mount?

The Small Kahuna