Hi Bob



 RM> I've seen *thirteen* galaxies. Although I'm not even vaguely

 RM> religious, I think I can begin to see what is meant by "the

 RM> hand of God".



 BL>   Does your God play dice?



Sort of. I thing the game He plays could be more accurately called

Craps. He does this by locating amateur astronomers hoping for a

clear dark night, and hurling clouds at them.



There was a thread in the internet echo sci.astro.amateur that

dealt with this recently. The first writer had noticed a

correlation between the size of a newly acquired scope and the

number of cloudy nights that immediately followed its arrival, and

wanted to know if the cloudtime was proportional to scope aperture

or dollars spent.



There were two notable replies. The first suggested that an equal

action-reaction relationship existed, because the time between

ordering a scope and its arrival was inevitably cloud free, still,

and transparent, especially if the scope had to be back ordered for

a month or two. The second guy made the morose observation that

after he'd bought a van to carry his scope and accessories around,

he was socked in for six months.



So yes, God does play. I'm not entirely sure what, though.



Cheers



ps reminds me of Stuart Littlemore aiming a barb at Philip Adams

tonight, something like "Mr Adams, pockets are for keeping

handkerchiefs in, not for what you are doing."



--- PPoint 1.88