From: gfk39017@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (George F. Krumins)
Subject: Re: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 52

fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:

>In article <C73w0t.FpH@cunews.carleton.ca> wcsbeau@superior.carleton.ca (OPIRG) writes:
>>I don't think that idea means what you think it does. Having everyone
>>on Earth subject to some ad agency's "poor taste" *is* an abomination.
>>(abomination : n. loathing; odious or degrading habit or act; an
>>object of disgust. (Oxford Concise Dictionary)) Maybe *you* don't mind
>>having every part of your life saturated with commercials, but many of
>>us loathe it.

>While I'm sure Sagan considers it sacrilegious, that wouldn't be
>because of his doubtfull credibility as an astronomer. Modern, 
>ground-based, visible light astronomy (what these proposed
>orbiting billboards would upset) is already a dying field: The
>opacity and distortions caused by the atmosphere itself have
>driven most of the field to use radio, far infrared or space-based
>telescopes. In any case, a bright point of light passing through
>the field doesn't ruin observations. If that were the case, the
>thousands of existing satellites would have already done so (satelliets
>might not seem so bright to the eyes, but as far as astronomy is concerned,
>they are extremely bright.)

>                                             Frank Crary
>                                             CU Boulder

Tell that to the people who run the 10-meter Keck telescope, or the 
astronomers and engineers working on the Gemini twin 8-meter telescope
project.  It took 7 years to build Keck I and now they are building
Keck II.  According to the December 1992 Sky & Telescope, "This
second 10-meter eye will convert the facility into a binocular telescope
with double the light-gathering power and the ability to resolve
the headlights of a car some 25,000 kilometers away."   Japan's 8.3-meter
Subaru telescope will soon join Keck on Mauna Kea.  All these telescopes
will work in the infrared, yes, but they are _visible light_ telescopes!

And haven't you heard anything about adaptive optics?  A lot of research
was done with "Star Wars" funding, and some is now being shared with
astronomers.  This shows great promise.  Soon, probably within a few
years, even the largest telescopes will be able to resolve to their 
theoretical limit _despite_ the distortions of the atmosphere.

To say that "visible light astronomy is already a dying field" is 
pure hokum.  To use the "logic" that things are already bad, so it doesn't
matter if it gets worse is absurd.  Maybe common sense and logic
are the dying fields.

George Krumins
-- 
Pufferfish Observatory         |^^^^^\^^^^|     The Universe had its origin
gfk39017@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu       ^^^/\ \^^^      in two hockeysticks colliding 
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