From: higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Trekglow brighter than sci.space (was Re: Star Trek Realism)
Date: 31 Jul 92 07:39:38 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

In article <1992Jul30.050224.28461@rvgs.vak12ed.edu>, khanna@rvgs.vak12ed.edu (Kevin Hanna) writes:
> 18084TM@msu.edu  writes:
>> When the ship is streaming through space, stars moving past
>> at several per second, how is it that the ship is steadily lit from one
>> side?  What is the source for this light? 
> 
> The light comes from the Enterprise's running lights reflecting
> off the hull of the observer's  ship.  Geez!  :-)

Hmm, r-to-the-fourth dependence, times geometry of camera ship, times
reflectivity of camera ship...  seems like we should be seeing some REALLY
bright lights shining toward us from the *Enterprise* if Kevin Hanna's theory
is right.

Well, maybe the camera ship is covered with Scotchlite.  And we can't rule out
that it's really *big*...

Disclaimer & apology:  I am aware that there are newsgroups and
mailing lists devoted to discussion of *Star Trek*.  However, I never
read 'em, so I would have missed this thread if it had been conducted
there. Take heart-- this thread will damp out soon and we will return
you to chatter about the "real thing" again.

As food for thought, here are the Usenet Arbitron statistics for May 1992
posted by Brian Reid (reid@decwrl.DEC.COM):

        +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
        |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
        |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
        |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
        |     |     |      |      +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
        |     |     |      |      |      +-- Crossposting percentage
        |     |     |      |      |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      +-- Share: % of newsrders
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      |   who read this group.
        V     V     V      V      V      V    V      V
  45  94000  2023   82%   834  1744.8    13%  0.04   4.1%  sci.space
  83  77000  1661   81%   857  2424.9    12%  0.06   3.3%  sci.astro
 119  65000  1415   76%    10    43.2     0%  0.00   2.9%  rec.arts.startrek.info
 146  59000  1282   63%    81   186.4    36%  0.00   2.6%  rec.arts.startrek
 195  51000  1098   80%   294   507.6     3%  0.02   2.2%  sci.space.shuttle
 245  46000   995   58%  1725  3570.2     4%  0.11   2.0%  rec.arts.startrek.current
 280  43000   923   58%  1101  2942.5    11%  0.10   1.9%  rec.arts.startrek.misc
 390  36000   768   60%   220  1064.5     0%  0.04   1.5%  sci.space.news
 437  33000   709   57%   461  1043.9     4%  0.04   1.4%  rec.arts.startrek.tech
 464  31000   681   58%   191  1561.4     5%  0.07   1.4%  alt.startrek.creative
 526  28000   609   57%   108   214.4    32%  0.01   1.2%  rec.arts.startrek.fandom
 959  13000   272   55%   118   318.5    11%  0.03   0.5%  talk.politics.space

Totals (ignoring crossposting):  

*Trek*-related messages:   3977
Space-related messages:    2323

*Trek*-related volume:     9562.5 kbytes
Space-related volume:      6060.3 kbytes

*Trek*/space ratio 
by message:                1.712
by volume:                 1.578

Oh, well, I think we're still beating out alt.tv.simpsons.

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Newsgroups: sci.space