Hmmm. It's not my burning desire to be curmudgeonly or cantankerous as a matter of course, but I've lived long enough to know when somebody's peddling BS while telling you they're blowing sunshine out their wazoo... Snake oil doesn't deserve a round of hand-holding and singing "Kumbaya" around the campfire. Back on-topic, 400 Years of the Telescope was a good show but all too brief. It's a good follow-on to a couple of books I read many, many years ago. The first is "The Glass Giant of Palomar" by David O. Woodbury, which details the building of the Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar, and "The Perfect Machine", a more recent book by Ronald Florence, essentially telling the same story but much more fleshed-out. Woodbury's advantage is that he actually met and spoke with many of the individuals who were responsible for designing and building Palomar during it's construction- he was there- including Russell W. Porter; while Florence dived a bit deeper and had the benefit of long hindsight. Both of these books are a good background for the recent PBS video "The Journey to Palomar" which was inspired by the latter book. Lay histories of 20th-century telescopes give far too little credit to geniuses like George W. Ritchey, who was a well-known crabby old fart in his day, and a master optician without peer. The develompent of the modern telescope is filled with twists and turns, genius and backbreaking labor, philanthropic generosity and clever personalities who expertily manipulated politicians, scientists, engineers, and financiers alike. On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com>wrote:

Oh, oh, watch out Chuck, you just said something nice. Us old folks are only supposed to be contrary. <grins>