Telescope

While the twinkle of stars may delight poets and lovers, for a scientist it’s simply evidence of the atmospheric disturbance that blurs and distorts detail in deep space images. Combining an incredible 1500 exposures a second capability with an extremely sensitive CCD220 image sensor, the OCam camera is able to analyze and correct these distortions, enabling pictures taken through Very Large Telescopes (VLT) on Earth to be as sharp as those taken from space. Read More

Amateur astronomers around the world have cause to celebrate as the first completely hands-off self-aligning telescope becomes available. First shown as CES in January, the Meade ETX-LS telescope uses a range of technologies, including GPS, magnetic sensors and a built-in CCD camera, to automatically determine its own location and then find any of more than 100,000 celestial objects. Read More

Asteroid impact is a very real threat to the earth. While the statistics on the probability of such occurrences vary in certainty, it is generally accepted that objects 5-10m in diameter hit the earth once every year while the odds of a devastating asteroid strike is approximately one in ten chance of hitting per century. Clearly, with the potentially monumental costs of such a devastating strike occurring, it is in our best interest to know as much as we can about potential strikes. Any ability to see such a catastrophe in advance has the potential to be of civilization saving significance, which brings us to the unprecedented observations made of 2008 TC3, an asteroid that fell to Earth late last year. Read More

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space telescope, which was launched on June 11 last year, has borne witness to the most violent gamma-ray burst ever observed – a monster that exceeded the power of 8000 supernovae. The GRB 080916C burst appeared in the Carina constellation, 12.2 billion light years from Earth, and was analyzed by five French teams, which published their results in the February 19 issue of Science Express. Read More