The ESA teamed with Nissan to build an off-road astronomy lab
Nissan unveiled its Navara Dark Sky concept vehicle at the Hannover Motor Show this week, and it's a vehicle designed for astronomers. The truck is an enhanced version of the automaker's Navara vehicle and along with including some handy new features, it also has a trailer in tow that carries a powerful PlaneWave telescope. Designed with the European Space Agency, the trailer not only houses the telescope but has a number of features that protect the telescope and help researchers collect and transmit data.
The trailer boasts a refrigerated interior that helps stabilize the telescope and battery packs can power a WiFi hotspot, a laptop station and a UHF transmitter for data relay. Further, the truck itself makes use of red lighting in order to cut down on light pollution while the ProPilot driver assistance technology takes the trailer into account and helps locate parking that best accommodates the trailer and telescope.
Seems like a good platform for measuring occultations.
Also at Autoblog.
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NASA's New Horizons team will again attempt observations of a stellar occultation of 2014 MU69, provisionally nicknamed Ultima Thule. Previous observations made when the object passed in front of a background star suggested that it was a contact binary and may have a small moon:
The goal is to learn as much as possible about 2014 MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule, which New Horizons will zoom past on Jan. 1, 2019. "This occultation will give us hints about what to expect at Ultima Thule and help us refine our flyby plans," New Horizons occultation-event leader Marc Buie, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement.
This is not the mission team's first shadow rodeo. Last summer, scientists traveled to Argentina and South Africa for occultation observations; the Argentina crew hit the jackpot, gathering data that helped set the planned flyby distance at 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers).
[...] Ultima Thule lies about 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto, which New Horizons famously flew by in July 2015. Scientists think Ultima Thule is about 20 miles (32 km) across if it's a single object; if it's two bodies, each component is probably 9 miles to 12 miles (15 to 21 km) long.
An occultation was used to determine that the dwarf planet Haumea may have a ring system in addition to its two known moons.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday September 21 2018, @11:06PM (1 child)
You could grind glass for the rest of your life yet never run out of interesting problems to solve.
And it's what got me accepted to Caltech.
My first six inch mirror grinding kit came with two thick disks of glass, I think six grades of abrasive from very hard and coarse to very fine and soft, as well as some Jeweler's Rouge, which when mixed with water looks just like human blood, a couple pounds of boiled-down pine pitch and NO INSTRUCTIONS.
There was just a brief note that informed me that those instructions are quite complex, so I'd need a book. For your first scope I enthusiastically recommend Jean Texerau's "How To Make A Telescope".
The truly hard part for me - at the age of twelve - was the mounting. I had trouble with every mount I ever made, leading to my present advice: start working on the mounting at the same time as you start working on your mirror. You'll find all kinds of things wrong with your first mount, so lather, rinse and repeat.
First light for the eight inch Newtonian I made when I was seventeen was a total eclipse of the Moon that I watched from the peak of Mount Diablo just east of Berkeley, California.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by MyOpinion on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:31PM
May I add, experimenting with mylar and different other membrane materials plus a parabolic dish works pretty well too: it can turn into a large parabolic mirror with practically no grinding (albeit a bit extra care needed to stick the membrane on the dish's surface with no air bubbles). It will also be lighter.
Truth is like a Lion: you need not defend it; let it loose, and it defends itself. https://discord.gg/3FScNwc
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday September 21 2018, @11:46PM (1 child)
"Hey, look at our manly truck. You can pull a trailer with it. To some remote area. We've done the gas-powered toys and campers many times, so this one has a telescope."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @01:01AM
It may be a fluff piece, but it involves science. In this day and age where science is being kicked around by any number of powerful groups, this is a nice ray(sorry) of hope for nerds.
My question, where are the stabilizing legs on the trailer that make the telescope usable? Sitting on those big squishy tires would make it impossible to aim the telescope with any accuracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @02:36AM (2 children)
Nissan and its CVT transmission.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday September 22 2018, @09:29AM (1 child)
... Wikipedia.
Some guy invented a Continuously Variable Transmission in I think the late seventies, that involved a fluid that would harden or something like that, when pressure was applied to it.
His CVT was featured in Popular Science. He showed it off to all the car companies but then I never heard anything more about it. I figure someone bought his patent then sat on it so it would never get to market.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @12:32PM
Did it use an electro-rheological fluid, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrorheological_fluid [wikipedia.org] or similar magneto-rheological fluid, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorheological_fluid [wikipedia.org] ?
Istr that early magnetic versions had a short service life as the particles either clumped or fell out of suspension. Now that the fluids are better, they are used in variable dampers (shock absorbers), often under General Motors/Delphi trade name "Magnaride", this patent has been widely licensed, including to supercar manufacturer Ferrari. According to wikipedia, GM sold it as part of a divestment in 2009...