January-3-2008
from Rense Website

 

Note - The following emails have been slightly edited for reading clarity only. Email addresses and phone numbers have been saved to file to protect the immediate privacy of the persons involved. - ed

 

Here are some emails between John Walson and a Cambridge Institute of Astronomy Professor, and then between Walson and a JPL/NASA employee about Walson's videotapes of machines in space... and the techniques he has devised to capture the images...

 

From: xxxx
To: John Lenard
Subject: Re: ISS photo
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:57:34 +0000 (GMT)

********************************************************
xxxx FInstP ScD
Professor of Experimental Philosophy
Institute of Astronomy
Cambridge University PA: Suzanne Howard
Madingley Road
Cambridge CB3 0HA UK
*******************************************************

Hi John,

many thanks for sending your remarkable images: you are clearly an exceptionally talented astro-photographer.

there are of course very many communication, spy and earth-observation satellites in orbit. The best information source I know to identify such things is a distinguished astrophysicist, who used to work here in Cambridge and now works at Harvard, Jonathan McDowell.

his (relevant) web page is
http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/jsr.html

and I've taken the liberty of cc'ing him on this reply.

best regards, and good luck in the hunt.
xxxx

 


On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, John Lenard wrote:

Dear xxxx

I think Jonathan McDowell is the perfect person, along with you, to solve the films
of mine. I would love to show you the real objects on the moon. when jpl/nasa saw my moon video, they did not know what I had gotten on my tape.

look at file moon walk jpg file

thank you. I am looking forward to speaking to Jonathan McDowell

regards,
John

 


 


From xxxx
Sent: Thu 1/18/07 3:37 AM
To: John Lenard

********************************************************
xxxx FInstP ScD
Professor of Experimental Philosophy
Institute of Astronomy
Cambridge University
Madingley Road
Cambridge CB3 0HA UK
*******************************************************

Hello again,

And again my congratulations on your superb astrophotography.

You are clearly getting some images at almost the diffraction limit of your telescope. In the very sharpest images there are hints of diffraction rings visible on the edges of the satellites. That is of course the absolute limit of optical performance, and is only rarely attained.

Interestingly, the process you have, of using a high-quality imaging system, with fast read-out, and then selecting the rare `perfect' images is something which has been developed and applied somewhat by one of my colleagues here. You might like to look at our local web page presenting some of this:

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~optics/Lucky_Web_Site/ 

You might also be interested in a journal produced by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory - which is the group which has built some of the things you are seeing. Much of what they do is what used to be the Star wars project, which no doubt involves some of your objects. They don't talk about the military satellites, of course, but there are many discussions of earth surveillance, and related issues.

 

It is distributed only to academic organizations, so you may need to get your local library to borrow it, but you may be able to get this (for free) from:

Subscription Coordinator
Room L-054
Lincoln Laboratory
MIT
244 Wood Street
Lexington
MA 0240-9185
USA

best regards
xxxx

 


 


From xxxx
Sent: Thu 1/21/07
To: John Lenard

********************************************************
xxxx FInstP ScD
Professor of Experimental Philosophy
Institute of Astronomy
Cambridge University
Madingley Road
Cambridge CB3 0HA UK
*******************************************************

Hi John,

my work address is perfectly safe, thanks.

I wouldn't worry too much about Nasa restricting you or your information. They are a civilian agency, and astronomers work with them all the time. Many of my colleagues are indeed nasa staff.

There is of course nothing like posting stuff on the internet if you do feel restricted.

But perhaps more useful might be for you to get the coordinate information to Jonathan so he can identify some of these for you.

ciao
xxxx

 


 


From: xxxx
Sent: Sat 2/10/07 2:37 AM
To: john lenard

Hi John,

Thank you for the images: once again they show that you are an excellent photographer.

There are of course many satellites in orbit, only a few of which are anything to do with JPL, but these are readily seen by astro-photographers like yourself all over the world.

You should just enjoy the excellence of your images, and make them available as widely as is possible, through the public web-sites, magazines, etc, so you can get the credit you deserve for your skills.

best regards
xxxx



John Lenard wrote:

Dear Jerry

One more important point...
what should a five and an 8 inch scope see?

 


 


From: xxxx
Sent: Fri 4/06/07 8:34 AM
To: John Lenard


********************************************************
xxxx FInstP ScD
Professor of Experimental Philosophy
Institute of Astronomy
Cambridge University
Madingley Road
Cambridge CB3 0HA UK
*******************************************************

Hi John,

A telescope does two things: it collects more light than an eye, so allows one to see fainter (sensitivity), and it increases the amount of detail (resolution) that one can see.

Sensitivity is simple: it gets better the bigger you are, so you will always see fainter objects with a bigger telescope: that is why astronomers like to build big things,

Resolution is more complicated: the finest detail you will see with a telescope depends mostly on the local atmosphere where you are. This 'seeing' is caused by turbulence in the air, usually at low levels. There is a typical size to these air-parcels, which is a few inches. At a site with very good seeing the parcels are up to about 10-12 inches, more typically they are 5-6 inches at a good site, 1-3 inches are a poor site, or in bad weather. The air-patches, bubbles, are blown by the wind, so keep changing as seen by one person/telescope, which is why some frames have a lot more detail than do others. most of Southern California - in fact all west-facing ocean coasts - are very good sites, with Mt Wilson and Palomar being famous examples.

The effect of this turbulence is that telescopes only see more and more detail until the telescope is larger than the air bubbles. When several bubbles are seen by the telescope at the same time the image no longer improves. When it is windy the bubbles move past quickly, so that the image is changing a lot, and seems fuzzy. That means that larger telescopes do not see more detail. In fact, a good back-yard telescope, well-adjusted, like yours, see just as much detail as a very large professional telescope, like the Palomar 200-inch. Palomar see fainter of course, but no `better'.

You will get the best possible image quality with a telescope about the same size as the bubbles, with a magnification which is just large enough so that exactly one air bubble is between the telescope aperture and the target image, and with an integration (frame-rate) time such that the bubble doesn't move by more than one-half its size during one film frame.

Your technique of 'lucky imaging' seems to have identified exactly the correct combination of telescope size, magnification and frame rate to match your local atmosphere and wind.

You can do a bit better by having a larger telescope - maybe twice as big - and using a shorter frame rate, but only when the conditions are very stable, so less often.

Of course, by far the biggest limitation most systems have is poor focus and wobble - poor mounts. Most systems don't work anywhere near their potential simply because they are not setup properly.

You can do better by trying to 'correct' the image for its distortions: that is called adaptive optics, and there are some quite good systems available. Hand-held video cameras already have them built-in, to correct for focus and hand-shake.

So, bigger doesn't always mean better. It depends what you want - to see faint, or to see detail. You can't have both, unless you get above all the air - which is why we build our telescopes on the top of very high mountains, or put them in space. That, however, is expensive.

regards
xxxx

 


 


From: "xxxx II" jpl.nasa.gov
To: "John Lenard"
Subject: other good film
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007

Hi John.

Wow! I'm impressed. It's either enormously huge (so you can see it as being larger than the bright stars in Orion) or closer than space.

And the movie is the best ever.

How do you know when to set up your camera? Or where to point it? I hope you don't mind all my questions.

Have a good weekend.

--xxxx

 


From: John Lenard
To: xxxx.
Subject: other good film
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:42:09 -0800

Dear xxxx

This film is very good. I hope you like it.

yours,
John
 



From: xxxx
To: John Lenard
Subject: other good film
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:12:02 -0700

Hi.

Yes. It appears to have symmetrical rectangular appendages, which are probably solar panels.

It also appears to be rotating on its X-axis a little -- Thanks for remembering to show me your stuff.

j--xxxx