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Space

This talk of space has got me thinking about building a 3d printed telescope. You can get some mirrors on Amazon for like $30.
It has begun. Got most of the telescope done. Just waiting on a few parts. Still have to figure out the stand.
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Primary mirror mount on lower tube assembly.
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Opening for eyepiece with secondary mirror mount inside.
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Still have a few pieces to print like dust covers for the mirrors and some mounts for the telescope to rest on that connect to the stand. Just waiting on the mirrors, a few specialty screws, and the eyepieces. Going to build the stand out of wood with a lazy Susan to make it swivel side to side. I also need to clean up a bit of stringing that was left on the printed parts and to paint it (matte black for the inside and whatever on the outside). I'll be watching for E.T. flying past Jupiter in no time.
 
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Could a black hole grow at a rate that is faster than the speed of light, in which case could it get to us (or suck us in) before we saw it coming?
A cool question.

We have observed black holes growing, by absorbing other stars. But their absorption rate is actually pretty time consuming. For a black hole to grow millions of times faster than our observations would require proximity to sufficient fuel on a level millions of times more than has been observed . . . for a black hole to grow faster than the speed of light (or even 5 percent of the speed of light), the BH would have to be relatively close to an infinitely large amount of stars.

Galaxies have lots of stars, but are generally far enough apart to deprive black holes from capturing stars from neighboring galaxies.

And yes, we are looking back in time, thousands and even millions of years, but that “look back” would likely reveal your universe eating black hole, prior to its having achieved light speed, and any alarming rate of increase in growth could be measured and estimated for the future. A black hole that is currently growing faster than the speed of light would not have been growing that fast in the past.

A far more likely scenario is that a black hole could be approaching our solar system, and damn near totally unobserved until it began eating the outer planets. I saw a program that estimated it would take 40-60 years to eat earth, from when we first see it eating Pluto.
 
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