----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thanks very much Tim. That's just the kind of binary/bifurcating thing I was fishing for--something additive that would take the concept to a new limit (height?). I've seen the technique used in numerous astronomy books/mags in a way analogous to key maps, but never systematically as powers of 10. If we ever put the quick-time together, the astrometric views will be in it. You remind me of a real-world analogy to the earth view/space view: when the Hubble Telescope was launched there was a report of a similar (if not identical), secret, military earth-oriented telescope put in orbit (as part of the same Shuttle mission?). Because of their mass, each telescope's orientation is essentially fixed as it orbits. When aimed at the earth, the Hubble is shut down so circuits don't blow due to high reflectance; reciprocally, the earth viewer would be shut down due to "blindness" when NOT looking at earth. The inefficencies were so obvious--why not one, two-ended telescope doing something all the time, or two two-ended ones orbiting in opposition? The clandestine nature of the second, earth-viewing anti-Hubble might explain it. But, if launched, I have never seen further mention of it (or its equally flawed optics?). I've also heard from a resercher at UCSB who added simultanety of earth events to the concept. Conceptually, this would hve added greatly to the "Day in the Life" photo projects published recently. To which we are adding a varient of the time lapse, "Twice taken" idea, using an elderly lady visiting her childhood home, which is now a ghost town in the Sierra Nevada. LC LC ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- There is an excellent children's book on astronomy called Exploring the Night Sky. One section of the book shows paintings of the sky at increasing distances from Earth, from (I think) one light-minute all the way out to the largest known structures in the universe. Whether or not this will help meet your needs, I can strongly recommend the book for children and adults alike. Tim.L -----------------------------Original message---------------------------- You could use something as simple as pennies. It would be easy to show 10**0 to 10**3 after that you could talk in terms of putting them in tubs, trucks trains, etc. You might want to mention pyramid schemes (usually powers of 6) where the 11th generation would require more than the entire population of N. America and the 13th generation requires greater than twice the world population. (That's a lot of soap distributors!). Greg Durocher ------- End of Forwarded Message Greg, maybe we could use a virtual penny generator and rn as a sidebar, paralleling the astronomical rise in "things" in each photo? I can picture a stack of pennies getting taller as earth recedes; or perhaps we should borrow some Scrooge McDuck stills from Disney? Might migrate into entropy and chaos concepts (with a diversion to fractals)? LC