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The VLT Observes Comet LINEAR's "Shower"
mindpixel writes "Two nights ago, while operating the VLT (the world's largest optical telescope), we got a call into the control room asking us to follow up the Hubble's imaging of Comet Linear a few days prior.
As soon as we got the coordinates, I pointed the telescope at the very fast moving comet and started taking pictures. They came in quickly, and they were awesome! We couldn't believe the detail we were getting. The comet was completely shattered. Even in the unprocessed images we were able to count nine mini-comets.
Six minutes ago, they released it
The VLT Observes Comet LINEAR's "Shower")"
I've been part of a team working on Comet Tabur (1996/C Q1) that is believed to have broken up as well. Our spectra of Tabur show some peculiar abundances, and it would be interesting to know if any molecular enhancements or deficiencies are being observed in LINEAR.
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You might have a look at encke. This site has a lot of info about comets in general, including finding charts, positions, brightness, and lots of pictures spread across the site.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
Hey, there is a business plan here, slashcache.org or something of the sort... People would just have to set their browser proxy settings. And if was fast enough, they wouldn't change them back. So now you'd have to proxy all sorts of interesting stuff to the technical minded opensource crowd along with the hot grits freaks.
Just include me when you get it rolling, OK?
Bleh!
Believe it or not, astronomy advances really *are* advancing as rapidly as computer technology. Some other commentors in this thread have suggested that building a telescope that is larger than today's scopes is difficult. I think that it is not. We have the technology and the ability to design and build telescopes that are 23, 30, or even 100 meters across. The largest scopes today have mirrors about 10 meters across.
The single most important limiting factor on telescopes today has to do with the adaptive optics used on modern scopes. Hundreds of times a second, a computer analyzes the light entering the scope and adjusts elements within the scope to change the shape of the optics, compensating for distortions in the atmosphere. When you've got a huge telescope, you've got a huge wavefront to analyze. It's currently not possible to perform the analysis, but with faster computers it will be.
I can just about guarentee that within 10 years or so an instrument at least 50 meters wide will be built. There's quite a few projects underway right now.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Apologies for any accidental misinfo in this.
HTH
Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
All in all, how much longer do people think before we get to some barrier to further advances...
From one point of view, we already are at the barrier. We have telescopes that can resolve images at the theoretical resolution limit for their aperture size (as governed by diffraction), we have telescopes that can focus all or almost all of the light falling on their (filled) apertures on to their detectors, and we have detectors that can detect individual photons. In other words, our telescopes are approaching the best possible efficiency for whatever aperture size we choose to build.
From another point of view, we will have the potential for continued advancement for quite a while to come. Optical interferometry-based telescopes are just starting to come into their own, which will allow us to build telescopes with synthetic apertures arbitrarily long. Segmented mirror technology continues to improve, with the maximum size of segmented mirror systems growing incrementally larger. Space-based telescopes are still an immature technology; while space-based telescopes won't be more efficient per se than ground-based telescopes, they can view wavelength ranges that the atmosphere blocks. There is also a fair bit of work to be done on automated instrumentation (as of the last few articles I've read on the subject, galaxy spectra surveys are still slow and involve a lot of fiddling, for example).
In summary, while we're starting to approach perfect efficiency for the telescopes we've built, there is still a lot of engineering to be done in order to incrementally broaden the range of telescopes that _can_ be built.
Does the slashdot editorial staff give any warning to sites they're about to feature, maybe giving them a chance to put up a mirror? Some sites are pretty immune to the Slashdot Effect, but lots aren't. Andover may even want to look into providing mirror space, maybe with an andover ad (like geocities or xoom), as a possible way of reducing the disruption of the Slashdot effect.
Well these aren't the VLT pics but the HST made
these photos at about the same time. And I believe this site is more slashdot-ready.
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The site is already slashdotted.. =:-(
A side though though (not quite on topic, but close...). Is it just my imagination, or is telescope technology evolving as fast as computer technology these days? We now have ridiculously precise lenses (first hubble aside =:-), we've got telescopes in space to avoid athmospheric interference, we've got micromotor controlled mirror arrays to make adjustments to images, and we've got all sorts of automated systems to alert humans if it looks like anything cool is happening in the sky at any particular location.
All in all, how much longer do people think before we get to some barrier to further advances, i mean people have been making steadily better and better telescopes for hundreds of years... (possibly thousands, i'm really not sure...) It seems that at some point we'll max out the technology...
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Play Six Pack Man. I
Who says there's a barrier? Ever seen a product or technology become oh-so-much-cooler because someone thought of a new use for it? This will continue to happen for eternity...or till you and me are dead and no longer care! ;-)
Since the VLT source appears to be slashdotted, another good place to look is the Astronomy Picture of the Day, which has a Hubble pic of the comet up today.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
I mirrord most of the page and was only able to grab one picture. But you can still make out the detail of the little picture :)
Be easy on the box it is on a dsl line.
Sig
Well, I can't find these new photos, but here is the original Hubble photo, and also a ground-based photo. (JPG and PDF available.)
Education is the silver bullet.
But i think the biggest obstacle would be: getting permission. It takes time. People may not check their mail. It may take a day or two to get a reply.
They may not have a very portable site, constructing the mirror may expose additional problems.
Your idea is interesting... but could prove to be impractical, and at the very least would create a barrier to timely news.
But don't get me wrong, i truly feel for all the small-time admins who've had their sites utterly crushed by madly clicking droves of slashdot minions.
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
Have fun!
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
Would you like it if someone was observing you in the shower? Geez, guys, leave LINEAR alone.
OK, it's very cool. Now what can we learn from it? I agree that basic research is a Good Thing, but is there anything more specific that we hope to learn about? I'm trying not to sound all pissy or anything, I'm just interested to hear people's thoughts. I think its VERY cool that we got this rare event with the telescopes (for that matter, anyone have any info on how rare it is?)
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