Transparent LCD add-on for Telescope lenses which simulates know star paths and obscures them with a dot approximate to the star's width in relation to the lense.
This would allow search for stars unseen due to proximity to brighter stars.-- Zimmy, May 30 2003 I don't get the LED thing. Do you mean LCD? If not, how does one obscure the light from the star with the light of the LED?-- lurch, May 30 2003 Sorry lurch, LCD is what I meant.-- Zimmy, May 30 2003 If you're serious about searching for previously unseen stars... two things. 1) you're not going to be peering through a telescope lens, you'll be looking at a computer monitor, and 2) you're probably not going to be using the visible light spectrum.-- waugsqueke, May 30 2003 And my understanding was that the point of subtracting out known stars was to find moving objects like asteroids. Would this help someone looking for asteroids? Quite possibly, but I'm not a star gazer, so you might want to check back with grumpy.-- DrCurry, May 30 2003 Computer programs can subtract out known stars, but you don't need to do that anyway.
You find asteroids and comets by comparing images taken over time, looking for things that appear in certain frames that aren't in others. Computers are frequently employed to do this too.
Most comets are found by amateurs out in the field, looking at other objects. People who know the skies well can tell when they see something that isn't supposed to be there. Zoom in on M70.. hey, what's that fuzzy thing? That's how both Hale and Bopp discovered their comet within hours of each other.-- waugsqueke, May 30 2003 The point of subtracting a known star is to keep the CCD chip from saturation from the halo of a bright star you aren't interested in, except perhaps as a guide star. I know this is done mechanically for viewing accretion disks, finding faint companions in binaries, and even SOHO.-- lurch, May 30 2003 btw... any of you Scots still up? You will have an annular eclipse sunrise this morning if you happen to have clear skies for it.-- waugsqueke, May 30 2003 [Zimmy] LCD's don't have true optical clarity. In effect, you would scatter/absorb more of the already faint light that you seek to enhance.-- Tiger Lily, May 30 2003 But possibly with the aid of a computer (ie, you view the computer screen as opposed to the lens)?-- git, May 31 2003 The other concept I had for this, as I do not fully comprehend LCD technology, was manually obscuring incoming light.
I thought this could be done by calculating an expected star field by degree of expected search and generating a "transparency scroll". the transparancy scroll would either run in front of the lense or through a slot and obscure incoming light.
I felt that the number of transparencies required would be too numerous to pass up the LCD option, though. I started a book a few years ago where this was a technology that found a war between alien cultures that was headed for earth. I never have finished a whole book though.-- Zimmy, Jun 01 2003 random, halfbakery