Dear Bruce & Ed, Assuming that a night assistant can collect all images without my participation, I would like to apply for **all** of the time on New Year's eve, for a two purposes: 1) To image a dozen, or so, objects (mostly QSOs) that have at one time or another held the record for the most distant object known. (The total number is only 24 that have ever held the record -- all the way back to the Andromeda Galaxy, in 1926) Motivation: We would use this image album for exhibitry in our new Hall of the Universe of the American Museum of Natural History. In particular, we have already created a 100-meter long, 300-image timeline of the 13-billion year history universe, with images of objects from every redshift from 0 --> 5.6. The record holders form a subset of these 300 images. The images we currently have for most of this group are poor, and are, for the most part, taken from the POSS-I plates. I would like to replace as many as possible with a "fresh" set, that goes deeper, to especially reveal assorted extended objects in the image. Individual exposures needn't be long -- and multiple exposures are not necessary. For 20th magnitude QSOs, perhaps 5-10 minutes each? I may want three bands just to create a color image. Remember, these will primarily be used for display. APO will be duly credited as the telescope on each image displayed. And I may even write an educational book that chronicles the astrophysical search for record holders. Coordinate list will follow if I am awarded time. ------------------------------------- 2) Three+ hours of H-alpha exposure of a dwarf nova in collaboration with Mike Shara, here in the Department of Astrophysics as the Museum. (More specifically: we would image for all the the remaining time after the above project.) Motivation: There must be condensed ejecta around dwarf novae because we see their barely escape-velocity winds (P Cygni profiles) in HST spectra. We have no idea if jets, blobs or a uniform wind is ejected, or how, or why. A summed image of several hours from a 3.5 m scope would likely show, for the first time, the ejecta and its symmetry. The FOV is just right, And it's at the right hour angle for this time of year at APO. U Geminorum (prototype dwarf nova) alpha(2000) = 07h55m05.3s delta(2000) = +22deg 00' 05" Halpha filter Width preferred is 50 Angstroms, but 25-100 Angstroms are all OK. Eighteen + images in Halpha (10 min exposure each) offset from each other by a few (3-5) arcseconds each time. Also: 5 images, 2 minutes each, in broadband R filter, offset from each other by a few arcsec (3-5) each time. -------------------------------------- Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you. -Neil p.s. I cannot "drive" the telescope that night because I am scheduled to fund-raise at a big shin-dig here in NYC appear live on Peter Jenning and Tom Brokaw. -Neil deGrasse Tyson Department of Astrophysics & Director, Hayden Planetarium American Museum of Natural History & Visiting Research Scientist & Lecturer Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University > APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 410 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu/APO/apo35-general/INDEX.html APO To join/leave the list, send mail to apo35-request@astro.princeton.edu APO To post a message, mail it to apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO