Photo of the Columbia
According to CNN, the picture of the last moments of the Columbia was not taken with the high quality imagery equipment available at Starfire, but with the cheapest, low-tech parts available:
Instead, it was taken by Starfire Optical Range engineers who, in their free time, had rigged up a device using a commercially available 31/2-inch telescope and an 11-year-old Macintosh computer, the researchers said.
It is a) Starfire hiding their abilities from prying eyes; b) Honest scientists saying the truth.
The next missions are going to have a lot of followers, that much is certain.
via Cory
Comments
a) No. What you see is a picture from a 3.5 inch Questar; no large telescopes were used.
b) Yes...as well as complicated things can be told truthfully in brief articles. The tracking coelostat used 'in front of' the Questar is low tech yet expensive, but it contributes nothing to the quality of the image.
Backyard astronomers might get a 'lucky shot' of the shuttle by unlocking the drives of the axes of their telescope, tracking by hand, while taking pictures as fast as their imaging equipment allows.
Posted by: Cosmo | March 15, 2003 7:07 PM