CCD images

LX200upgraded_optimized.jpg (83646 bytes)

Most images were acquired using this Meade LX200 10" f/6.3 SCT, SBIG ST-7E, and CFW-8 at prime focus, using a focal reducer, eyepiece projection, or barlow lens.

An Essay: LOOKING AT THE WORLD

"Of all our senses it is vision that most informs the mind. We are versatile diurnal primates with a big visual cortex; we use sunlit color in constant examination of the bright world, though we can also watch by night.

It is no great wonder that the instruments of science also favor vision; but they extend it far into new domains of scale, of intensity, and of color. Complex instruments assemble partial images of the three-dimensional space in which we dwell, images rich and detailed although at scales outside the physical limits of visible light.

The images finely perceived by eye and brain in a sense, span the scientific knowledge of our times. The world is displayed by our science in diverse ways, by manifold instruments and by elaborate theories that no single person can claim any longer to master in detail. The presentation of the whole world we know as though it were a real scene before the eyes remains an attractive goal. It should be evident that no such assemblage could be complete, no picture could be final, nor any image plumb the depths of what we have come to surmise or to understand. Behind every representation stands much more than can be imaged, including concepts of a subtle and often perplexing kind. Yet it is probably true - truer than the experts might be willing to admit - that the linked conceptual structures of science are not more central to an overall understanding than the visual models we can prepare."

by Philip & Phylis Morrison
POWERS OF TEN
About the Relative Size of the Universe