[Mircea Pteancu]

Va prezint mai jos un mesaj al lui Peter Abraham despre o caricatura si un mic articol glumet aparut in 1873 intr-o revista germana de umor, despre un ipotetic telescop automat pentru descoperirea asteroizilor si cometelor.
Pentru a viziona caricarura urmati linkul de mai jos,traducerea din germana in engleza a articolului insotitor o gasiti in textul mesajului lui Peter.
ATS este acronimul lui Antique Telescope Society al carui membru activ as fi devenit de saptamana aceasta daca eu as fi fost aradeanul care a castigat cele 10 milioane de Euro.
Dar ,pe scurt,nu ma inscriu in ATS .....inca!
Mircea
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At the last ATS meeting, in Virginia, I opened my
presentation with a drawing that I only knew as
German, 19th century, showing an 'asteroid
self-discoverer'. I recently searched for the
periodical, as I have been doing for over a
decade, and discovered that the entire run of the
German humor magazine was now available on
line. So I found the issue, and as hoped there
was an explanatory text, and a far better copy of
the illustration, which I continue to find vastly amusing.
I posted the illustration, and (with help from
machine translators), I translated the brief
text, which was brief enough but in black letter
which can really confuse the modern reader.
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http://home.europa.com/~telscope/temp/Aste...decker.jpg
673kb
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Ein Asteroiden Selbstentdecker. Fliegende
Blätter (Flying Leaves) No. 1470, Vol. LIX, 1873.

An Asteroid Self-discoverer.
We managed to construct an instrument that
discoveres the asteroids, comets, and other
unknown celestial bodies, in a purely mechanical way. The setup is as follows:
A telescope-like instrument, with a combination
of lenses constructed on the principle of the
camera obscura, is placed facing the sky. This
projects all celestial bodies in the visual
field, onto a strip of paper which is stretched
across two rollers. Using a clockwork, the paper
is moved past the focus of the instrument, as the
stars move across the field of the instrument.
On this paper, all known fixed-stars, planets, &
asteroids, are precisely placed, like a map of
the sky, and marked by black dots. The remaining
area of the paper is chemically prepared so that
the slightest impression of light that is not
onto these blackened dots, results in an instantaneous ignition of the paper.
If this traversing star chart is properly
oriented, the image of a star will always fall
onto a black dot on the map, but if somewhere in
the sky there is a star (asteroid or comet) that
is not yet recorded on the paper, i.e. has not
previously been detected, and that object is
formed as an image on the chemically prepared
surface, then there is a point of light, the
paper ignites, the sparks fall on the powder
filled fuse, which inserts into a small cannon, and a shot is fired.
This shot awakens the astronomer sleeping quietly
in the next room. He jumps up, rushes to the
instrument, and in the small parallel telescope
next to the large telescope, he sees the newly
discovered star. Klinkerfues, Luther, and the
other famous asteroid discoverers need no longer
brave the cold winter night air, and to get colds
and flu in their strenuous undertaking with comet
seekers. Unfortunately it is not possible to
have this epoch-making tool displayed in a world
exhibition. It is expected that the large number
of small planets, which are located between Mars
and Jupiter, might cause a shot every quarter of
an hour, which shot will show all peoples of the
world, the discovery of another new asteroid.

Peter Abrahams telscope@europa.com abrahams.peter@gmail.com
The history of the telescope and the binocular:
http://home.europa.com/~telscope/binotele.htm
10040 NW Thompson Rd., Portland, Oregon, 97229-3822, USA

[Mircea Pteancu]

Inafara de partea umoristica,ceea ce este frapant la caricatura si articolul de mai sus,este un fapt evidentiat de Bart Fried.Si anume,ca metoda lansata in gluma a fost de fapt o inovatie lansata mult inaintea timpului sau.In articol telescopul este stationar si functioneaza ca o ''camera obscura'' proiectand imaginea pe o harta care urmareste firmamentului.In realitatea noastra, un principiu similar a fost de fapt utilizat la spectrometrul MAP utilizat multi ani la Allegheny.Sau cu marile placi metalice pre-gaurite folosite de Sloan Digital Sky Survey.Diferenta este ca placile folosite in Sloan Survey se miscau impreuna cu telescopul in miscarea diurna.

O gluma care dupa un secol a devenit o metoda de cercetare foarte serioasa.Deci iata o gluma serioasa!
Mircea