Finding Planet 9 by Telescope Aimed at Pyramid Faces

I was thinking of calling this article something more elaborate, like:

Aiming Telescopes at Pyramid Faces for the Purpose
of Using them as Space Microscopes 

Plus: Using Reflected Lasers to Rapidly Scan for Objects in Space

But that title was way too long.

I was reading about Planet 9 in the news recently.  It's pretty exciting to consider just how much stuff there is in space waiting to discover, and how impressive the science, and scientists, are with regards to the search for space-relating things.  Especially this new information and research into the possibility of finding Planet 9.  I've worked in science a little.  My dad worked on rockets and the Apollo projects, as well as a bunch of other things floating around in space.  I've seen first-hand how much discipline and diligence goes into proving and disproving and making sure it's all as tight and true as can be.

I was reading again this morning about the search for Planet 9, and how Caltech Brainiacs Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin think it'll take 5-15 years to find it and snap a picture of it.  I lack that kind of patience and admire their discipline, but what if there was a way to search space faster, so we could find Planet 9... and maybe more fun stuff like it?

That got me thinking about massive telescopes, geometry and finding a spec of dust a gazillion miles away from our little blue dot as it's spinning and wobbling and screaming through space and I was pretty impressed that anybody could find anything with any degree of reliability, especially with telescopes.  Just stabilizing all that glass stuffed in tubes against gravity is hard enough.  But trying to get a stable picture out of it?  That's nothing short of genius, sweat, and miraculous.  That's what makes math and physics so awesome.  I'm pretty sure astrophysicists have overdrive or extra brains (or they make it up... hah!)  That stuff is out-there.

The Pyramid Faces and Turning Telescopes Into Microscopes

But, being simple, I was thinking of the geometry of looking with telescopes, because I can still kind of ruminate over math problems a little and it had me wondering if it might be significantly easier and more reliable to find Planet 9 by Pyramid.   What if somebody were able to point a Hubble-like telescope at the face of a giant first-surface mirror perfectly calibrated and oriented on the surface of the earth?  Wouldn't that make said telescope more of a microscope pointed into the giant petri dish of outer space?

The Pyramids are pretty perfectly calibrated and oriented.  When they were built, their surfaces were also constructed with optical precision.  The advantage a ground-based search, with telescope(s) pointed at the face of a Pyramid is that they're ground-based and can be instrumented.  Like a microscope, various focal length lenses can be outfitted and used to view into various regions of space.  Rather than a single telescope pointing into space, a telescope, or family of telescopes, could be outfitted to be oriented around the base, configured to view into regions of space.  The fact that the focal plane is so close provides an advantage with regards to stability and, would therefore, affect the quality of data collected.

Pointing a telescope at the face of the pyramids, which are effectively first-surface mirrors, would allow for faster scanning of the skies by virtue of the stability of the system and the ability to move and locate objects with high precision as the focal plane could be so close to the surface being observed.  Looking for something 50 gazillion miles away is hard when you're trying to aim straight at it.  It's significantly more stable to view a reflected image some 5 inches or 500 feet away while using progressively longer focal lengths to zoom in.  So long as the surface reflection honors the incoming light, both the direct telescope and the telescope looking at the reflected image are viewing the same light.  An array of lenses, from the wide angle to high magnification could be aligned with the reflection of a stellar body for simultaneous imaging because each reflected image is created by the same light source.

On top of being easier to stabilize and track in the reflection due to proximity of the reflection, a variety of focal length lenses and instrumentation could be installed and configured without affecting any previously installed data collection system, thereby allowing a variety of experiments to operate asynchronously and continuously, while also providing the ability to adjust a possible range of optics upon a target simultaneously.  In essence, the pyramids, by virtue of their size, stability and optically true surfaces, provide the opportunity to view into space, at myriad stellar bodies, for a variety of purposes, simultaneously, with a high-degree of precision and data quality.

Any telescope trained directly into space requires increasing degrees of stabilization with increased magnification and weight.  There appear to be advantages to having a ground-based system that can view reflected images up-close.  Along with the stability, looking at objects close-up provides greater opportunities for instrumentation, viewing with a variety of focal lengths, filtering, simultaneous experimentation of time-based systems (e.g. different telescopes/optics/filters on various faces trained on an object), and more.  It's possible to look at the same object through devices positioned feet away from each other, or on opposite faces.

It'd all be fun if it could improve our ability to peer into space with less issues related to dampening, vibration, and reduced accuracy with distance, though there's always the concern about atmospheric interference.  Still, since it's all the same light, it seems to make good sense to increase the precision by viewing the light in the most stable way.  Looking at the reflected image of a far-distant object appears to be an optimal viewing solution, especially since the reflection affords multiple instances of the same image from different viewing perspectives.

The Pyramids As Deep Space Scanners With Lasers

What if, in combination with giant telescopes as microscopes looking for the equivalent of far-far-distant specks of dust, the pyramids could use powerful lasers in tandem with telescope-microscopes - like point-scanners, flashlights or distance sensors?

If the orbit can be calculated for Planet 9, to within a certain region of space, sets of lasers could be oriented such that they reflect off of points on the pyramid faces and converge upon a point inside the orbital envelope of Planet 9.  Where they converge would be a bright spot of known, calibrated intensity.  It wouldn't have to be a point, it could be a smiley face, it just has to be discover-able and track-able.  To calibrate such an array, the spot would be located in a scanner capable of measuring light intensity over a set of calculated locations and values, all of which could be located by telescope peering into the reflection of the pyramids from the region of space being scanned.

Sighting a device at the face of the pyramids, such as a telescope, equipped with light sensor, to track the signal of the spot of convergence, while moving the spot through space means that as the beams move through the orbital envelope, the system would be capable of monitoring the spots through space.  Any object the beams encounter would interrupt the signal, and trigger an alarm that would provide the exact location and time.  Finer resolution scans could be used to find the bounds of any body discovered by the absence of a visible signal within the body, bordered by signals to either side.
In essence, the pyramids could likely be used as giant scanners and microscopes, scanning space until a body is found, then finding the size of the object, distance and velocity by the same technique, using higher resolution intervals.

Given the projected distance to Planet 9, the time for light to travel to the orbital envelope would be about 55-110 hours (estimated at 10-20 times the distance to Pluto - it takes 5.5 hours for light to travel to Pluto.)  I have to calculate the light intensity requirement in order to determine the number of lasers and the intensity required, but they'd pretty much be aligned around the base(s) at some elevation which would allow them to be positioned such that they could target a range of positions on the faces of either or both pyramids to escape at any angle throughout the visible hemisphere, from rising horizon, to meridian, to setting horizon, in order to converge at points in space within a set of search parameters.

By an estimate of the size of the proposed planet and the orbit, it would be possible to calculate the number of scan points required to find it.  Scanning every 1/2 of the best guess of the diameter of the considered object should be sufficient to map space, though there's likely an optimal search step that would prevent any large object from hiding within the search results.

It would seem plausible to turn the search for Planet 9 into a scan plot that searches depth or breadth first through regions of space.  A series of pulses could be sent out to locations at regular intervals, based on the pulse duration of the laser units, time to aim the units, and any needed sequenced firing to avoid heating the atmosphere.

I'm sure there are potentially a million issues, but if this idea isn't hair-brained and it actually got built and it actually worked, it'd be likely we'd go full-tilt and fire constantly every fraction of a second to cover the huge expanse of space the planet is considered to inhabit.  I'm going to see if I can calculate the number of data points required to scan a region and the time it would take to process them.  It's probably a long time.  It's been forever since I calculated AU and converted it to small steps.  Did I say forever?  I meant never.  I've calculated a lot of stuff, but never AU for any reason.  After looking at the orbit and distances, it really seems like looking for a planet - or anything, for that matter - with a telescope would be excruciatingly painful and s-l-o-w.

The sequence for a sample might be 1) aiming the lasers, 2) firing the lasers*, 3) scanning for the response at the expected time of arrival, 4) detecting the signal and recording the response.  From there, it would require mapping the successful soundings, while doubling back over any reading that resulted in a lost signal to see if it was caused by interference or having bonked a planet.  Once the initial delay for the first signal to travel to destination is discovered, it'd be possible to collect data every few minutes, seconds, or fractions of a second, depending on ability to sequence, aim, fire, and detect.

Looking for reflected light far, far away is hard.  Putting a bright spot into space and waving it around until it hits something is fast and easy.  Ask any kid with a flashlight.  Scanning empty space with telescopes that shake, vibrate, and need massive data correction is so 1923.  It's time for telescope-microscopes with laser finders.  If the idea has merit, of course.

In Conclusion

By pointing a telescope onto an optically precise, reflective surface, they become, in essence, a microscope, capable of viewing into space consistently, by virtue of short focal distance to the object being reflected.  Combining surface stability with the ability to accurately aim and move the telescope (as microscope) slowly, and with equal or better precision relative to the orientation of the observing platform (accurately aligned pyramids), large areas of space could conceivably be scanned quickly, methodically, and with great accuracy and precision.

Further, a collection of lasers aimed onto the surface of the pyramids, such that they converge on a distant point in space, and with controlled intensity, could possibly (maybe?) make it possible to use them as a scanning and detection system for distant bodies, especially those hard to observe because they're so far distant from light sources.  The advantage of multiple lasers converging on a point means that the work of the lasers can be distributed, lower cost, lower energy, emitting lower heat.

The array of lasers would be constructed to ensure that the intensity of the spot created by their union was detectable in the region of space being observed and/or scanned.  Such a targeting system would likely and significantly improve our ability to locate objects in space.