Tuesday, October 5, 2010

NZ-42815

Today is a national holiday and that means no mail but yesterday my mailbox was full. I've received 15 cards and 3 of them were officials. This one is from New Zealand.


NZ-42815, sent by Fran.
"Mt John Observatory is a high-tech research observatory, founded in 1965 as a joint project between the universities of Pennsylvania and Canterbury. It is at Lake Tekapo, in the centre of New Zealand’s South Island – where there is the greatest chance of dark, clear skies.
A large 1-metre Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain telescope was installed at Mt John in 1986. Known as the McLellan telescope, it is used mainly for high-resolution spectroscopy of stars with a Hercules vacuum echelle spectrograph (spectroscopy is the study of the way atoms absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation). The data can be used to measure star velocities, temperatures, pressures, chemical composition, rotation rates and other parameters." - in:
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/astronomy-overview/4

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