Re: ATM Amateur Space Telescope, (AST)

["Chris Tant" <ctant1@ford.com>]

>Communication to and from this sort of instrument would have to be from a
>lunar satellite, I suppose--hence propellant and gyroscope problems, again?
>And the temperature variations would be almost as bad, if not worse (IR
>radiation from moon surface at "night" would slow cooling, but would affect
>telescope anisotropically)  although not as frequent. Flame me if I'm
>missing something.

>Michael Schmidt
>schmidt@csusm.edu

The telescope could be hard wired (or fibered) to a transmitter on the near
side. Both telescope and transmitter would have to be some what hardened
against meteor strikes. If you think a grain of sand can damage your mirror
during polishing, think what it can do when it has some real energy.