From: "Robert Comer" 

It's actually so cool it's extremely cool. 

Read about the original way they proved light was a wave here:
http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/youngdoubleslit.html

Then extrapolate that to a way to get the right thickness "card"
to cause the interference pattern for the star's light and line your planet
up in a trough, and bingo, it can be seen.

--
Bob Comer


"Geo"  wrote in message news:44afc50d{at}w3.nls.net...
> How do you get interference patterns with a disk shield?
>
> Geo.
>
> "Phil Payne" 
wrote in message
> news:44acbe29$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> > If the shade is any distance at all from the telescope it wouldn't need
> to
>> > be much larger than the lense on the scope.
>>
>> It's a shitload cleverer than that.  A distant enough object produces
> light
>> that can be treated in some ways as coherent.  The suggested bafflle lets
>> the star's light through, but creates interference patterns.  The
>> plant-seeking sensors are placed in an interference "trough".
>>
>> If my slipstick is correct, you could even tune for star diameter.  That
>> would back up a whole load of other measurements.
>>
>> I haven't messed with interference patterns since I was the first person
> in
>> my school's history to show the split in the sodium line.
>>
>>
>
>

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