萬物簡史 第34期:埃文斯牧師的宇宙(3)

So when a hopeful and softspoken minister got intouch to ask if they had any usable field charts forhunting supernovae, the astronomical communitythought he was out of his mind. At the time Evanshad a ten-inch telescope—a very respectable sizefor amateur stargazing but hardly the sort of thingwith which to do serious cosmology—and he wasproposing to find one of the universe's rarerphenomena.

因此，要是有一位滿懷希望、說話細(xì)聲細(xì)氣的牧師前來聯(lián)系，問一聲他們有沒有可用的星場地圖，以便尋找超新星，天文學(xué)界一定會認(rèn)為他的腦子出了毛病。當(dāng)時，埃文斯只有一臺5厘米的天文望遠(yuǎn)鏡--這供業(yè)余觀星之用倒差不多，但用那玩意兒來搞嚴(yán)肅的宇宙研究還遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不夠--他卻提出要尋找宇宙里比較稀罕的現(xiàn)象。

In the whole of astronomical history before Evans started looking in 1980, fewer than sixtysupernovae had been found. (At the time I visited him, in August of 2001, he had just recordedhis thirty-fourth visual discovery; a thirty-fifth followed three months later and a thirty-sixth inearly 2003.)

埃文斯于1980年開始觀察，在此之前，整個天文學(xué)史上發(fā)現(xiàn)的超新星還不到60顆。(到我2001年8月拜訪他的時候，他已經(jīng)記錄了他的第34次目視發(fā)現(xiàn);3個月以后，他有了第35次發(fā)現(xiàn);2003年初，第36次。)

Evans, however, had certain advantages. Most observers, like most people generally, are in thenorthern hemisphere, so he had a lot of sky largely to himself, especially at first. He also hadspeed and his uncanny memory. Large telescopes are cumbersome things, and much of theiroperational time is consumed with being maneuvered into position. Evans could swing his littlesixteen-inch telescope around like a tail gunner in a dogfight, spending no more than a coupleof seconds on any particular point in the sky. In consequence, he could observe perhapsfour hundred galaxies in an evening while a large professional telescope would be lucky to dofifty or sixty.

然而，埃文斯有著某些優(yōu)勢。大部分觀察者像大部分人口一樣身處北半球，因此身處南半球的他在很大程度上獨自擁有一大片天空，尤其是在最初的時候。他還擁有速度和超人的記憶力。大型天文望遠(yuǎn)鏡是很笨重的東西，移動到位要花掉好多操作時間。埃文斯可以像近距離空戰(zhàn)中的機(jī)尾射手那樣把5厘米小型望遠(yuǎn)鏡轉(zhuǎn)來轉(zhuǎn)去，用幾秒鐘時間就可以瞄準(zhǔn)天空中任何一個特定的點。因此，他一個晚上也許可以觀測400個星系，而一臺大型專業(yè)天文望遠(yuǎn)鏡能觀測五六十個就很不錯了。