Re: What is this?

[Michael Porter <mbt@SYMPATICO.CA>]

On 10/21/02 12:37 PM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

> Has Mr. Porter tried interposing it between the sun and an eye.  It could be a
> solar telescope filter. OTOH, I'd expect such a filter to be rather light -- a
> gold film on thin optical glass.  Mine uses Kr and less expensive ones are
> coated mylar.  I go with the IR mirror guess --  first surface with a thick
> pyrex backing for high Q and rigidity. --  1/10 th wave length flat and rigid.

I had to smile when I read this -- You saw the part about it being a steel
disk 1 inch thick?! ...Could be a solar filter, if all I'm looking for are
neutrinos and assorted high energy particles!

The thing that is curious about it is that the disk is featureless, aside
from the gold plating -- no holes/ridges/protrustions for mounting it on
anything. Either it is a blank and these things would be added later (but
presumably the gold coating would happen after that?), or it rests as is in
some kind of cradle... Maybe Arthur C. Clarke was wrong, and the aliens
don't use black monoliths after all!

> bc  who has a whatz this -- and requests the loan of a web p. to display.
If you e-mail the picture to me, along with any text you'd like to include
(e.g. An e-mail link), I can put it on the same page (or a similar one) as
the disk, as long as the family web page isn't pushed aside by file size
limits...

Mike
What's this? <http://www3.sympatico.ca/mbt/Whuzzat/>
mbt@sympatico.ca

--
Michael Porter
Colonel By Secondary School
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.