Project Longbow/secret
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The Library Data entry is correct, although incomplete.
LONGBOW II: A more ambitious project, Longbow II, based on the lessons learned from the first Longbow, was begun under Strephon's direction in 1103.
- This project will use the entire width of the Imperium as its long baseline. With its sensor termini located in the Spinward Marches and Antares Sectors, in resolution but not sensitivity, Longbow II replicates a passive sensor dish with a diameter of 160 parsecs (18 trillion miles), sensitive in all electronic bands, from gamma and X-rays down through visible light and infra-red all the way to long-wavelength radio.
- Longbow II will be able to achieve a theoretical resolution of 0.0196 inches at a range of 8,000 parsecs, the distance to the galactic core.
- However, unlike the original Longbow whose disk-shaped receiver provided two-dimension resolution (width and length), Longbow II's long baseline will lie only in the width dimension, along the galactic plane. This means that this spectacular theoretical resolution will be only in width, not height. Longbow II data will be collected at all of the listening points along the "bowline" and carried by jump-6 Imperiallines and Longbow Corporation couriers to its "focal point" at Depot/Lishun, where the data will be synchronized (by such methods as pulsar emissions within the common field of view of all the sensors), compiled, filtered, and enhanced by lengthy and demanding computer runs.
- However, the calibration of such a complicated system is a massive undertaking. It will probably be decades before meaningful observations of the galactic core can be extracted from the raw data. The existence of Longbow II is not openly acknowledged, and it will be described only as a top secret communications project if it must be discussed at all. The Longbow data and all analysis of it has one of the highest security classifications in the Imperium.
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