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Old 04-October-2005, 07:22 AM
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Manchurian Taikonaut Manchurian Taikonaut is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by seohtu
Manchurian, if you have a moment, could you elaborate on the blind spot you refer to? I imagine the sun and its environs would qualify.. regardless of the Earth's position around the sun, looking toward the sun would be detrimental to the Keck's cameras, for instance <wink>. Or is there another aspect I haven't yet stumbled upon?

Europe's Gaia will be checking it, region of space inside Earth's orbit, towards the Sun. From Earth, astronomical observations close to the Sun are almost impossible because it means observing during the daytime when only the brightest celestial objects stand
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread....703#post438703
The Gaia spacecraft will be ideally situated to probe the asteroid blind spot between the Sun and Earth. Asteroid 2002 EM7, which passed close by the Earth was one such object and was only detected after it crossed Earth's orbit to appear briefly in the night sky, before it crossed back into the glare of the Sun
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