UA Astronomers Take Sharpest Photos Ever of the Night Sky

UA Astronomers Take Sharpest Photos Ever of the Night Sky

Thanks to new technology developed in part at the UA, astronomers can now view objects in the sky at unprecedented sharpness in visible light. Using a telescope mirror that vibrates a thousand times each second to counteract atmospheric flickering, the team has achieved image resolution capabilities that could see a baseball diamond on the moon.

Astronomers at the University of Arizona, the Arcetri Observatory near Florence, Italy and the Carnegie Observatory have developed a new type of camera that allows scientists to take sharper images of the night sky than ever before. The team has been developing this technology for more than 20 years at observatories in Arizona, most recently at the Large Binocular Telescope, or LBT, and has now deployed the latest version of these cameras in the high desert of Chile at the Magellan 6.5-meter telescope.
UANews

Now we have telescope here on Earth that can actually take better images than Hubble, despite our atmosphere. Hubble has only 8-foot mirror, while Magellan 21-foot mirror, images are twice as sharp. This is first time ever any telescope could beat the Hubble. Can't wait to see the images it takes.

reply to post by Thebel


Well it would be nice to at least have a link to some pix...

How about I give you a link to this :

www.hammacher.com...

This nice little number allows you to travel back in time.


Best, Wildmanimal

One of the things I found most impressive in the article was this demonstration of how much sharper an image is when using the MagAO adptive optics, and how much it can counteract atmospheric distortion:



The image with the adaptive optics is certainly more clear than the one without -- but I would like to see the difference in sharpness between this MagAO system and the other images taken with the previously best adaptive optics system before MagAO.

That would be a better "apples to apples" comparison.

Also, I wonder how the images taken with this system compare to images through the Hubble telescope, which probably has less of a need for adaptive optics, considering it has no atmospheric distortion to worry about.

The system how it avoids the atmosphere effect is quite interesting, I have never heard about it before. Mirror that vibrates thousands of times in second. First time ever we can make long-exposure images to resolve objects that just 0.02 arcseconds across. Thats equivalent of dime viewed from more than 100 miles away. Soon we don't need telescopes in space as with this new system, atmospheric effect can be almost 100% ruled out.

Sorry, I forgot to add picture earlier, but here is one, it shows details from Orion nebula. The background image is taken with Hubble, but with Magellan telescope you can see some objects highly detailed.

This is amazing! I hope they photograph Pluto using this system, I think it will provide better surface resolution.

Do you think some day we will achieve technology to see Apollo landers from Earth?

Originally posted by wildespace
This is amazing! I hope they photograph Pluto using this system, I think it will provide better surface resolution.

Do you think some day we will achieve technology to see Apollo landers from Earth?

Well, we see better surface photos of Pluto when New Horizons reaches it in July 2015. Can't believe its already so close to Pluto. It was launched in 2006, its super fast, heliocentric velocity ~15 km/s.

They are going to use that new camera/telescope to photograph furthest objects in space. I don't think they photograph solar system a lot. And they can't photograph things that are too close, like Moon, as its super bright and may damage the camera.

reply to post by Thebel


Thanks for adding the Pix,
and info.

Beautiful Thread! S&F

reply to post by Thebel


Yea!

Go Cats!

BEAR DOWN!

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


It tells you in the link.

These images are also at least twice as sharp as what the Hubble Space Telescope can make

It is amazing that we can zoom in on things in our solar system and beyond,
and yet still cant get a actual video or picture of a UFO