Word: fishbowl
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...specially designed for photographing meteors was shipped last week to Harvard's meteor station near Las Cruces, N.Mex. Weighing 5,000 Ibs. and mounted on an odd, horseshoe yoke, it looks like nothing else on earth. The outer lens, 18 in. in diameter, is as convex as a fishbowl. Inside are other lenses, one of them also bowl-shaped, and a 23-in. concave mirror. The film is placed between the lenses and sucked by a vacuum against the curved surface...
...fishbowl lenses of the meteor camera almost stopped even Perkin-Elmer. "When we first saw the plans," said Perkin, "we thought we would be nuts to tackle it." But their job turned out almost too well. The camera forms a star image so small and sharp that it hits only one or two grains in the sensitive emulsion on a photographic film. As a result, the camera must be used slightly out of focus to make star images big enough for easy study...
Just how many men altogether were called up was a Pentagon secret-or something of a secret to Americans at least. After three weeks of fishbowl mobilizing, the Defense Department was tightening up on security. It advised local newspapers to publish the figures for local calls, but asked the U.S. press to print no nationwide totals. Reason: there was no use "making things easy for the enemy by doing his bookkeeping...