Measuring popularity...

Anyone care to speculate on the total acres of glass pointed at Mars
during the recent week of closest approach?

In an idle moment I wondered if this could form the basis of a
standard "unit of popularity" for visual events (to replace subjective
terms like "amateur astronomers everywhere" with a deterministic
measure of interest levels)?

May I humbly submit for adoption as an international standard…

-----
First, the "Aperture hectare" (Ah); representing the total aperture
directed at an astronomical event for its entire "duration" (however
that is defined). The same aperture used multiple times only counts
once.

To derive absolute popularity, factor in the area of detectors (e.g.
eyes, CCDs or film) receiving the captured light. Paired detectors and
detectors used multiple times only count once. For this, I propose the
"Open ocular hectare" (Ooh)

Multiplying the two terms yields the "Ooh Ah" factor!
-----

Sorry :-)

On 3 Sep 2003 03:38:47 -0700, (justbeats)
stepped up to the plate and batted:

Anyone care to speculate on the total acres of glass pointed at Mars
during the recent week of closest approach?

In an idle moment I wondered if this could form the basis of a
standard "unit of popularity" for visual events (to replace subjective
terms like "amateur astronomers everywhere" with a deterministic
measure of interest levels)?

May I humbly submit for adoption as an international standard…

-----
First, the "Aperture hectare" (Ah); representing the total aperture
directed at an astronomical event for its entire "duration" (however
that is defined). The same aperture used multiple times only counts
once.

To derive absolute popularity, factor in the area of detectors (e.g.
eyes, CCDs or film) receiving the captured light. Paired detectors and
detectors used multiple times only count once. For this, I propose the
"Open ocular hectare" (Ooh)

Multiplying the two terms yields the "Ooh Ah" factor!
-----

Sorry :-)

Hmm...

So the result of mutiplying hte Aperture Hectare by the Open Occular
hectare could be called the "Derived optical hectare"

Or:

Ooh times Ah equals Doh!

G../0

I support your endeavor, however it divides the "have scopes" from the "have
not scopes".

Looking at it one way, your system provides an elegant system for counting
mars watchers. But turn that telescope around, and you see racism staring
back at you. You see the poor, huddled masses waving from the distance
without a scope of their own. You see jessie Jackson, and behind him, the
windswept hills of the angry red planet.

"justbeats" wrote in message
m...
Anyone care to speculate on the total acres of glass pointed at Mars
during the recent week of closest approach?

In an idle moment I wondered if this could form the basis of a
standard "unit of popularity" for visual events (to replace subjective
terms like "amateur astronomers everywhere" with a deterministic
measure of interest levels)?

May I humbly submit for adoption as an international standard.

-----
First, the "Aperture hectare" (Ah); representing the total aperture
directed at an astronomical event for its entire "duration" (however
that is defined). The same aperture used multiple times only counts
once.

To derive absolute popularity, factor in the area of detectors (e.g.
eyes, CCDs or film) receiving the captured light. Paired detectors and
detectors used multiple times only count once. For this, I propose the
"Open ocular hectare" (Ooh)

Multiplying the two terms yields the "Ooh Ah" factor!
-----

Sorry :-)

In article ,
justbeats wrote:

Anyone care to speculate on the total acres of glass pointed at Mars
during the recent week of closest approach?

Sure!

Let's assume 500,000 observers with an average scope size of 8",
that's a total of some 25 million square inches. Assume a 20%
central obstruction on the average -- that'll bring down the area to
20 million square inches.

1 yard = 36 inches == 20E+6 sq inches = 15,400 sq yards
1 chain = 22 yards == 15,400 sq yards = 31 sq chains
1 acre = 10 sq chains == 31 sq chains = 3.1 acres

So there you a a few acres....

The contribution from the big scopes of the world is here negligible,
for two reasons:

1. There aren't very many of them -- the area of the twin Keck scopes
for instance is a mere 0.02 acres, and that's the world's largest
scope.

2. Few of them are used to observe Mars.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

What about clouds and lousy weather. It's been raining in this part of the
world for the past week.

Al


"Paul Schlyter" wrote in message
...
In article ,
justbeats wrote:

Anyone care to speculate on the total acres of glass pointed at Mars
during the recent week of closest approach?

Sure!

Let's assume 500,000 observers with an average scope size of 8",
that's a total of some 25 million square inches. Assume a 20%
central obstruction on the average -- that'll bring down the area to
20 million square inches.

1 yard = 36 inches == 20E+6 sq inches = 15,400 sq yards
1 chain = 22 yards == 15,400 sq yards = 31 sq chains
1 acre = 10 sq chains == 31 sq chains = 3.1 acres

So there you a a few acres....

The contribution from the big scopes of the world is here negligible,
for two reasons:

1. There aren't very many of them -- the area of the twin Keck scopes
for instance is a mere 0.02 acres, and that's the world's largest
scope.

2. Few of them are used to observe Mars.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/