Re: Comet Hyakutake

[P3D J.J. Larrea <jjl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hmm, I guess this is a bit late, but instead of trying to use the comet's
motion to generate synthetic stereo via timed exposures from a single
vantage point, wouldn't it be better to shoot the comet in true
(hyper)stereo?  I'm fairly ignorant of the specific difficulties, but it
seems like it should be possible to take advantage of the fact that the
subscribers of this list are situated all over the planet, that highly
accurate time references are available over the Internet, and that for
many, photographs can be cheaply and easily exchanged via email and usenet.
If several people synchronized watches, used the same focal-length optical
systems, and oriented their lens axes in parallel (pointed at the same
distant star), some selection of photos snapped at the exact same time
should - with a bit of creative cropping and image-processing - yield
celestial-scale hyper stereograms that were not troubled by effects from
the earth's rotation.  Or am I nuts?

If anyone has worked out the math, I'd be very curious to find out how far
apart the cameras would have to be to get a stereo image of an object at
Hyakutake's size and distance.

- JJ Larrea <jjl@xxxxxxxxxxx>



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