I believe that such an ellipsoid would be indistinguishable from a paraboloid, unless the second focus (the one that isn't the sun) is many thousands of miles away. Jim Propp On Saturday, May 4, 2013, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
A slightly more optimal [shape + position] would be for each mirror to be a portion of the prolate ellipsoid with foci at the sun and at the location to be burned that passes through the location of the mirror.
The various ellipsoids involved will typically be different from each other.
--Dan
On 2013-05-04, at 1:35 PM, Henry Baker wrote:
The optimum shape would be a portion of a parabola with a focus on the area you want to burn.
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