The Shadow Telescope
The Goals The Shadow Telescope's purpose is to improve the precision of existing land-based and orbital telescopes at measuring the sizes of stars. Greater precision in the measure of star sizes will lead to greater precision in the measurement of planets circling stars. The primary focus is on stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The action is to construct and operate a visual occlusion target of known size and location between the object observed, and the observer. The Filter Mask Blotting out light is not a new process in astronomy. To remove the affects of bright stars in the foreground, masks are created and inserted in the line of light that is entering the telescope allowing the light from dimmer stars to be visible. The Shadow Telescope is unique in that it's purpose is not to blot out the whole star, but only a known, precise portion of the star. By subtracting of a known portion of light from the star, the size, distance, and mass ratios of the star can be calcula...