Telescope
In an effort to explore what is perhaps the last salient region of our solar system yet to be visited by a spacecraft, NASA has announced Solar Probe Plus, a mission that will launch a probe directly into the sun's atmosphere. The mission will seek to answer some of the outstanding questions about the nature of our very own star, while helping to understand and forecast the radiation environment in which future space explorers will be living and operating. Read More
The verse “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are” could, in fact, refer to the frustration felt by astronomers trying to view celestial objects obscured by turbulence in the earth’s atmosphere. It’s that turbulence that causes stars and other heavenly bodies to twinkle, and it’s one of the reasons that space-based telescopes like the Hubble can see those objects more clearly than telescopes down here on the ground. Recently, however, a team of astronomers from the University of Arizona developed a technique that allows them to effectively turn off the twinkling over a large field of view, allowing them to get Hubble-quality images in a fraction of the usual time. Read More
Launched on March 6, 2009, the Kepler spacecraft is continuing to scan the heavens for Earth-like exoplanets. The $US591 million Kepler boasts the largest camera ever sent into space, incorporating a 0.95-meter diameter Schmidt telescope with an array of 42 CCDs, each with 2200x1024 pixels. NASA has recently released 43 days-worth of data covering more than 156,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our galaxy, but more analysis is needed before any conclusive findings can be made. Read More
The last time we did a story on extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) in October, 2009, there had been 374 planets outside our solar system discovered. As of June 28, 2010 that number had risen to 464. The numbers look set to get a further boost thanks to a new technique that allows planets even down to the mass of the Earth to be detected with relatively small diameter telescopes. For the first time, using the technique known as Transit Timing Variation (TTV), a team of astronomers from Germany, Bulgaria and Poland have discovered an exotic extrasolar planet with 15 times the mass of Earth in the system WASP-3, 700 light years from the Sun in the constellation of Lyra. Read More
If there’s a killer asteroid or comet hurtling towards Earth it’s probably best to know about it sooner rather than later. However, space is a big place and keeping our eyes out for these little blighters is no mean feat even with a mighty automated telescope to hand. Fortunately, astronomers in Hawaii have just announced they’ve successfully managed to boot up the Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System) telescope, also known as PS1. Working from dusk-to-dawn every night Pan-STARRS is able to map one-sixth of the sky each month, allowing astronomers to track every moving object, calculate their orbits and identify any potential threats to Earth. Read More
The world’s largest optical telescope is about to get a lot better, thanks to LUCIFER. No, no one’s made a deal with the Devil - LUCIFER is a new near-infrared camera/spectrograph system being added to the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mt. Graham in south-eastern Arizona. The tool has been in development for over a decade, and is now ready to offer astronomers “spectacular insights into the universe, from the Milky Way up to extremely distant galaxies.” Its large field of view and high resolution will allow for unprecedented observation of star-forming regions, which were previously difficult to view due to dust clouds. Read More
Although we do know some things about the Sun - it's big and hot for example - in many ways it remains a great mystery to scientists. In a bid to shed some more light on our closest star, NASA launched its most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the Sun in February this year. The goal of the the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is to help us understand where the Sun's energy comes from, explore its inner workings, and learn more about how energy is stored and released in the Sun's atmosphere. A nice side benefit will also be the capture of stunning images – the first of which have just been released. Read More
NASA's recently upgraded Hubble Space Telescope has made the deepest near-infrared image of the universe ever taken. Taken using a newly installed camera, the image shows deep space objects such as galaxies that formed only 600 million years after the Big Bang, making them the oldest galaxies ever seen. The image was taken with the Hubble’s new Wide Field Camera 3, which astronauts installed in May. Read More
The Santa Barbara Instrument Group (SBIG) is adding two new models to its line of specialized, high-resolution CCD cameras for astrophotography and spectography. The ST-8300M and ST-8300C both feature an 8.3 megapixel CCD, thermoelectric cooling, and a USB 2.0 interface. The camera bodies accept both standard c-mount and Nikon lenses making them suitable for a variety of applications. SBIG claims the cameras’ antiblooming and microlens technology improves their sensitivity. Both cameras can also be used as autoguiders to control motorized telescope mounts. Read More
SBIG, also known as the Santa Barbara Instrument Group, has announced its latest horizon-to-horizon view cameras, the AllSky-340 and AllSky-340C. The AllSky cameras are designed for extended, unattended sky watching such as monitoring the weather, detecting meteors, or keeping an eye out for ETs. The cameras feature a self-contained all-weather housing, heated dome enclosure, an optional Bluetooth interface, and optional solar power. Read More
