"Fred Hoyle - The Black Cloud" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoyle Fred)

was to keep on photographing the whole sky, night after night, month after
month. Some day he would strike lucky. It was true that should he find a
supernova located not too far away in the depths of space, then more
experienced hands than his would take over the work. Instead of the 18-inch
Schmidt, the full power of the great 200-inch would then be directed to revealing
the spectacular secrets of these strange stars. But at all events he would have
the honour of first discovery. And the experience he was gaining in the world's
greatest observatory would stand well in his favour when he returned home -
there were good hopes of a job. Then he and Greta could get married. So what
on earth was he worried about? He cursed himself for a fool to be unnerved by a
wind on the mountainside.
By this time he had reached the hut where the little Schmidt was housed.
Letting himself in, he first consulted his notebook to find the next section of the
sky due to be photographed.
Then he set the appropriate direction, south of the constellation of Orion: mid-
winter was the only time of the year when this particular region could be reached.
The next step was to start the exposure. All that remained was to wait until the
alarm clock should signal its end. There was nothing to do except sit waiting in
the dark, to let his mind wander where it listed.
Jensen worked through to dawn, following one exposure by another. Even so
his work was not at an end. He had still to develop the plates that had
accumulated during the night. This needed careful attention. A slip at this stage
would lose much hard work, and was not to be thought of.
Normally he would have been spared this last exacting task. Normally he
would have retired to the dormitory, slept for five or six hours, breakfasted at
noon, and only then would he have tackled the developing job. But this was the
end of his 'run'. The moon was now rising in the evening, and this meant the end
of observing for a fortnight, since the supernova search could not be carried on
during the half of the month when the moon was in the night sky - it was simply
that the moon gave so much light that the sensitive plates he was using would
have been hopelessly fogged.
So on this particular day he would be returning to the Observatory offices in
Pasadena, a hundred and twenty-five miles away. The transport to Pasadena left
at half-past eleven, and the developing must be done before then. Jensen
decided that it would be best done immediately. Then he would have four hours
sleep, a quick breakfast, and be ready for the trip back to town.
It worked out as he had planned, but it was a very tired young man who
travelled north that day in the Observatory transport. There were three of them:
the driver, Rogers, and Jensen. Emerson's run had still another two nights to go.
Jensen's friends in wind-blown, snow-wrapped Norway would have been
surprised to learn that he slept as the car sped through the miles of orange
groves that flanked the road.
Jensen slept late the following morning and it wasn't until eleven that he
reached the Observatory offices. He had about a week's work in front of him,
examining the plates taken during the last fortnight. What he had to do was to
compare his latest observations with other plates that he had taken in the
previous month. And this he had to do separately for each bit of the sky.
So on this late January morning of 8th January, 1964, Jensen was down in the
basement of the Observatory buildings setting up an instrument known as the
'blinker'. As its name implies, the 'blinker' was a device that enabled him to look