The FReeper Foxhole Profiles General John D. Imboden - Defender of the Valley - Mar. 29th, 2004

http://www.ehistory.com/World/PeopleView.cfm?PID=334 ^ | Jay Schroeder

[Iris7]

"For four hours I hurried forward on my way to the front, and in all that time I was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying."

"No help could be rendered to any of the sufferers. No heed could be given to any of the appeals. Mercy and duty to the many forbade the loss of a moment in the vain effort then and there to comply with the prayers of the few. On! On! We must move on. The storm continued, and the darkness was appalling. There was no time even to fill a canteen with water for a dying man; for, except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in the vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horrors of war than I had in all the two proceeding years."

You can see it in his pictures, around the eyes, in his look. Painful to look at.

Lee really blew Gettysburg. Go look at the Union fields of fire where Pickett charged. Napoleon's tactics were suicide in 1861-65. Forrest's, and Imboden's, deep raiding against the railroads and civilian assets combined with Cold Harbor style defenses would have won. The Union behind the lines was not defended. Strategic offense, tactical defense.

[w_over_w]

Evening Grace Snip & Sam~

Great read. Imboden's hardly mentioned in most of my CW material. Great credit is given to a loyal general . . . a real flanker.

Okay! Dumb question time . . . NO, NO! . . . I insist! It's a dumb question. What's with the right hand placed inside the coat as depicted in Imboden's portrait? It's not exactly something I can do an internet search on . . . so I'm going to the Pros from Dover.

[PhilDragoo]

1936 10,000 watch the 200" mirror blank passing through Indianapolis

I wasn't in Indy then for that, but did see the transfer of a dynamo to Los Alamos National Laboratory via a 400-tired armada.

Four tractors of some thirty-tires, with an array of components including bridge-spanning load-spreading trusses.

I understand the Hale Palomar will be used for Richard A. Clarke's proctological exam as he is such a huge but I digress.

1. Some of the thirty-two four-wheeled rail trucks that turn and support the 1,000 ton dome.
2. Motors that turn the dome.
3. Base of the 530-ton telescope frame which is not attached to the building.
4. The yoke which rests on ...
5. the north polar and ...
6. the south polar bearings, which permit east-west motion of the telescope.
7. the telescope tube, supported in the yoke on ...
8. spindles to permit north-south motion, has the ...
9. 200-inch mirror at one end and at the other ...
10. the prime focus capsule to which the astronomer is carried by ...
11. an elevator.
12. A diaphragm can be closed over the mirror to protect it when not in use.
13. Auxiliary mirrors can be used to send light from the main mirror to the ...
14. spectrograph room in any position of the telescope.

The Hale Reflecting Telescope

Lenses are used in refracting telescopes. Mirrors are used in reflecting telescopes. The mirrors are ground and polished so that a precise concave surface remains to be coated with a shiny, reflective finish. Mirrors concentrate light and focus all colors of the spectrum in an image. No lens can bring to focus all of the colors in white light. Further, lenses absorb some of the light that passes through, thus weakening the image. Mirrors are easier to make in large sizes than lenses and can concentrate the light of the dim images from deep space. Reflecting telescopes are currently used for space exploration.

On March 25th, 1934, in Corning, New York, the largest disk, made of a special glass containing borax (borosilicate glass), was poured. It was 16.6 feet across, and referred to as the 200 inch disk. It was 26 inches thick, and weighed 20 tons. Its ultimate destination, when ground, polished and coated with a layer of bright aluminum, was the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain, near Pasadena, California.

During the manufacture, the furnace was so hot that several cores in the brick mold broke away from the metal anchor rods and floated on top of the molten glass. Though the accident meant that the disk would never be used as the great mirror, it wasn't considered a complete failure. It was used to test the annealing process for the pouring of the second disk, and for experimenting with packing and crating methods to be chosen for shipping it to California. The first disk, displayed in Corning, New York, is pictured to the left. You can see the reinforced back of the disk that looks like a giant waffle.

The second disk was cast six months later, cooled, packed and shipped by railroad to California. It took 7 1/2 years to grind and polish nearly 5 tons of glass from the flat side of the original 20 ton blank. The reason the job took so long to finish was because a world-wide war (World War II) interrupted the process for about 5 years. Skilled people and materials were diverted to the war effort.

The Palomar dome and the tube (inset, right) with the dome retracted. IMAGES: © Bradford Behr

200-inch Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory

Galileo made great discoveries with a telescope fitted with a lens less than 2 inches wide (5 centimeters). However, as astronomers' questions grew to include the fundamental structure of the universe, requiring that they look outside the Milky Way, so did their need for larger telescopes.

Thus, George Ellery Hale envisioned the 200-inch (5-meter) telescope at Palomar Observatory, in northern San Diego County, California. The largest telescope at the time was the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory, also in California and also designed by Hale.

The main feature of the Hale Telescope is, of course, the 200-inch mirror. Hale saw that to make it so big, it would have to weight 20 tons. He also knew that to make the telescope useful, the mirror would have to be made of a stable material that would not expand or contract significantly with temperature. And on mountaintops such as where Palomar is located, the temperature can change dramatically throughout the course of a day.

Hale eventually chose to make the 200-inch mirror out of Pyrex, a particularly heat resistant and stable glass that was a relatively new discovery at the time. Cast in 1934, it required eight months to cool. The mirror was then transported by rail from the glass factory in New York State to the factory in Pasadena, California where it was ground and polished. Twelve years later, because of delays from World War II, the mirror was complete and sent to Palomar. It weighed 14.5 tons.

The designer did not live to see his telescope complete, dying ten years before it was dedicated in his honor in 1948.

Hale also missed the discoveries made by astronomers using the 200-inch telescope, which "opened up the field to understand quasars and the universe of galaxies," says Wallace Tucker, science spokesman for the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

More specifically, scientists verified that quasars are extremely powerful yet distant objects, and that the universe is expanding, as Edwin Hubble theorized.

For 40 years the 200-inch Hale Telescope held the honor of being the largest reflecting telescope. But even today its optics make it one of the world's best observatories and a technological marvel.

Palomar, After 50 Years

To entertain his young students, and perhaps in preparation for an evening of astronomical observations, Edwin Hubble brought a telescope up to Silver Hills one afternoon and set it up in the circular driveway of John Roberts' home at 1235 Main Street Hill Road. This photo was taken by Jack Roberts late in the day, with Hubble facing directly into the west. My great-grandmother's famous climbing rose can be seen on the wall behind Hubble, along with a glimpse beyond the house of one of Floyd County's biggest elm trees. In contrast to the other photos, Hubble seems to be in rather formal dress for the occasion. This is the earliest photograph in existence showing Hubble with a telescope.

The underside of John Frequency-shift Keri, showing the distinctive waffle-like structure.

Haleboppareboppenspankenspacetruppen "Uhura"

Kerry, seeing earth is not ready for his superior attitude, leaves, instructing those who remain to consult "Gore".

Klatu barada nicto. . . which means, "You won't have Kerry to kick around anymore."

[Valin]

I understand the Hale Palomar will be used for Richard A. Clarke's proctological exam

DISTRUBING IMAGE ALERT!!

[w_over_w]

Hey Phil,

Thanks for the "ping". What the hell happened to this thread? Was there a "flame war" and everyone got banned except you and me? Check your assets and call in any markers . . . somethins goin' on. ;^)

I actually voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it.
Then I saved France from "Killer Tomatoes."

[PhilDragoo]

FReeper research has completed an alien autopsy of Richard A. Clark

[SAMWolf]

Thanks aomagrat.

Snippy has been working on putting together a thread on the Confederate raiders and blockade runners. A real little known aspect of the WBTS.

[SAMWolf]

1936 Nazi propaganda claims 99% of Germans voted for Nazi candidates

Reminds me of the 99% of Iraqis who voted for Sadaam in the last election. I hear 99% of Al Quada is planning to vote for Kerry too.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Feather! Making good progress on our trip West. I feel so much better being West of the Mississippi. :-)

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for the additional info on Imboden, carton253.

[SAMWolf]

Mulla Omar reportedly seriously wounded in US raids

Let's hope this is true and that his wounds prove fatal.

[SAMWolf]

Evening PE. It'll be great to get back home and have my posting time back. :-)

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Johnny.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Iris7. The Dauntless was a fine plane that even out performed the plane that replaced it.

[SAMWolf]

Go look at the Union fields of fire where Pickett charged.

I've seen photo's of the ground, it's amazing the Confederates even reached the Union lines.

[SAMWolf]

Evening w_over_w.

I don't know about the hand in the jacket. Sure seemed to be a real popular pose in those days though. I always remember seeing Napoleon in that pose.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo

Kerry, seeing earth is not ready for his superior attitude, leaves, instructing those who remain to consult "Gore".
Klatu barada nicto. . . which means, "You won't have Kerry to kick around anymore."

ROTFLMAO!! You know you just spoiled one of the classic Sci-Fi Movies for me.

[SAMWolf]

I understand the Hale Palomar will be used for Richard A. Clarke's proctological exam

And very few people are more deserving, can I do the insertion? I promise to be gentle, yeah right.

[snippy_about_it]

Hiya feather. Just stopping in before Sam posts tomorrow's thread. We're making progess and doing fine. Having a fun time too but wishing we could have taken a month so we could see people and places.

[snippy_about_it]

This really would be good news if we got the one eyed mulla.