RCnews-Reflections

The Retiree Club

An organization of Perkin-Elmer retirees and other former employees

HUBBLE MIRROR VIDEO

Since the earliest days of astronomy, since the time of Galileo, astronomers have shared a single goal — to see more, see farther, see deeper.
The Hubble Space Telescope's launch in 1990 sped humanity to one of its greatest advances in that journey. Hubble is a telescope that orbits Earth. Its position above the atmosphere, which distorts and blocks the light that reaches our planet, gives it a view of the universe that typically far surpasses that of ground-based telescopes. Hubble is one of NASA's most successful and long-lasting science missions. It has beamed hundreds of thousands of images back to Earth, shedding light on many of the great mysteries of astronomy. Its gaze has helped determine the age of the universe, the identity of quasars, and the existence of dark energy.

Click here to see this SPECTACULAR PERKIN-ELMER VIDEO

We as Perkin-Elmer Retires have a very great interest in space because of the work on Hubble. This is just another example of the entire worlds interest in space.

Audio Slideshow: Storm on Saturn

In the remote Australian Outback, a retired miner has found himself the toast of the
astronomical world by capturing rare pictures of an electrical storm on Saturn. Trevor
Barry's images have attracted interest from Nasa's Cassini mission to the planet.

Here the amateur astronomer, from Broken Hill, New South Wales, explains the significance of
his Saturn pictures, and why he is so passionate about the night sky.

Click on this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7468832.stm

MICRALIGN
Bellwether of the Semiconductor Industry

Perkin-Elmer's introduction of the Micralign projection mask aligner in the early 1970s was a major technological breakthrough that revolutionized the semiconductor industry. The evolution of Micralign represents one of the most successful products in the long history of Perkin-Elmer. The machines print fine line integrated circuit patterns on the silicon wafers for high density microchips. The chips are the "brains" inside a multitude of electronic devices from handheld calculators to video games to sophisticated computers.

Please click on the link below for a historical and technological overview of Micralign, featuring a video that highlights the importance of the product. The video is a salute to all those former Perkin-Elmer men and women who contributed to the success of the product.

http://vstream1.vlsiresearch.com:80/public/history/dave_markle_070807/dave_markle_index.htm

Pioneers of the Micralign include Peter Moller, fourth

from left; John Bossung, fifth from left; Harold Hemstreet,

third from right; Abe Offner, second from right; and Jere

Buckley, far right, with their creation in 1977.

This Micralign photo represents a salute to Perkin-Elmer. Though perhaps more well-known as the maker of the Hubble space telescope, Perkin-Elmer is nevertheless one of the grandfather’s of the chip making industry, without whom computer chips might very likely still be in the dark ages of SSI (small scale integrated circuits) with under 100 transistors rather than today’s super-sized SOC (system on a chip) integrated circuits holding more than 600 million transistors.

Follow the success and travails of this amazing company from its first glimmers of hope via a 1967 Air Force contract to culmination in the PE100 projection aligner; then through its rise to the summit of the industry with more than 3000 shipments of that indispensable equipment line. Then down to its nadir, failing to believe in the possibility of ruin; finally acceptance and the emergence of a totally new step-and-scan system. But, too late! The train had left the station. So the business line was sold off to SVG and IBM in 1990, then sold again to ASML in 2001.

Left photo from:
https://www.chiphistory.org/exhibits/Near Impossibility of Making a Microchip/I_and_T_Fall1999_PP44-52.pdf

Hubble Reveals Ghostly Ring of Dark Matter

A ghostly ring of dark matter floating in the galaxy cluster ZwCl0024+1652, one of the strongest pieces of evidence to date for the existence of dark matter. Astronomers think the dark-matter ring was produced from a collision between two gigantic clusters.
Credit: ESA/Hubble

click here for the full story

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been called the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). But what does this really mean? How will JWST be different than HST? There are some similarities - both telescopes are (or will be) in space. They both seek to improve our understanding of processes like star birth and the evolution of galaxies. However, there are many differences between HST and JWST.

For starters, JWST will primarily look at the Universe in the infrared, while HST studies it at optical and ultra-violet wavelengths. JWST also has a much bigger mirror than HST. This larger light collecting area means that JWST can peer farther back into time than HST is capable of doing. HST is in a very close orbit around the earth, while JWST will be 1.5 million miles away at the second Lagrange (L2) point.

Click on this link to read all about it.

http://hubblesite.org/
The official HUBBLE Web site

(Hubble's mission will not end in 2010. The James Web Space Telescope will go up in 2011)

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

The heart of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be a mirror with a clear aperture of 25 m². It will be 2.5 X larger than the mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope, and is expected to be able to resolve objects 10 - 100 X fainter than Hubble can see.

http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/lbto/ - -When fully operational in 2005, the Large Binocular Telescope will be the world's most technologically advanced optical telescope. It is expected to yield images nearly 10 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Tidbits
Fascinating & Interesting Items
From the Internet & Other Items

	http://www.gizmag.com -Australian web site with all kinds of newest items and products-GREAT SITE-
	http://www.chihuly.com/chihuly.html GLASS :Dale Chihuly's love affair with glass has endured for over 40 years, resulting in a breath-taking collection of sculptures and installations

If you have suggestions for additions to the site, such as P-E projects,
products, technologies, events, please let us know.
Limit your choices of images to a half dozen or so.

Additional Web pages will be added soon.
Please submit articles that you feel
would be appropriate to:

Don Mahon

Click to E-Mail: Director@RCnews.org

	Interesting article from a Florida paper,"The Villages Daily Sun", about Paul Petty who is a retired vice president and general manager of optical technology with Perkin-Elmer...... http://www.thevillagesdailysun.com:80/articles/2006/10/28/news/news02.txt
	A Brief Look at the Amazing Story of Perkin-Elmer by Don Mahon
	A Danbury Overview by Dan Malinak and Bob Sopchak
	The Optics of Photolithography A look at one of Perkin-Elmer's engineering success
	Whatever Happened to The Perkin-Elmer Corporation? Edited by Bob Davis