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The Humble Space Telescope
frank249 writes " How would you like to do your own astronomy research with a space-based telescope? Sounds unlikely? Perhaps today, since there's only one available, and NASA has it booked pretty solid. However, this is about to change. The Canadian Space Agency just signed a contract to launch Canada's first space telescope, is scheduled to be launched in October 2002. If successful, millions of astronomers worldwide will have access to a more humble version of NASA's Hubble via the internet. It is scheduled to be launched in October 2002 as part of a multiple payload mission from Plesetsk, Russia, on an SS-19 based launch vehicle called Rockot. The SS-19 was supposed to be destroyed as part of an Arms reduction treaty so why not get some use out of it?" And it's so cute, it looks like mod furniture.
Amazing... the same stuff that keeps us polite make satellites small! Wonders never cease...
You can get an hour for a bowl of poutine and a few strips of back-bacon.
Fair warning, of course, this is just a small part of the grand Canadian master plan to take over the world.
...I'm sure that is one Application Service Provider for the net that will actually make a profit...
BlackNova Traders
If anyone's interested there's a great article in last month's Wired that talks about how Russia is using their rockets to make some ca$h launching other people's satellites. Seems to be working pretty well too!
Have a Happy.
Ummm, is it me or does this thing look like one of those 126 cartridge cameras Kodak sold to everyone with a paper route in the seventies?
Wow, THAT brings back some memories...
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Guys, this isn't going to be rented by the hour to amateur astronomers (or amateur spy satellite operators). And this isn't going to be competing with Hubble either.
I think the story submitter spent too long as a moderator.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
As a former HST employee, I just wanted to let you know that the astronomical data from the Hubble Space Telescope is available online to anyone who wants access! Of course, astronomers have a certain time period before their data becomes available to give them a chance to analyze it first. It used to be a year, I believe. After that, it's available from http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/search_retrieve.html. That page should have all the info needed to start.
Happy stargazing!
Oh, and did I hear "scientific" space telescope? Well, space telescope, orbital missile defence platform, same thing, right?
The rest of the world will soon learn the virtues of putting cheese curds on french fries! BWAHAHAHA!
I heard they are going to have to keep it in geo-sync orbit with Canada so they can finally begin studying Celine Dion's giant camel toe.
BOSTON SUCKS!
Only so long as we do not get the equivalent of the Holy Grail in Outer Space. Although that could be fun in itself.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Get your poles and speak out your grievances here.
Soo, you are on /. for what reason?
To save costs, this thing was designed and built by students at Canadian universities. At the University of Toronto, a graduate student taking AER 1520H would have directly participated in the design of MOST. I have some friends who worked on this project ...
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
...as opposed to the old Canadian attitude control technology, viz. the excellent products made by Molson, Labatts, etc.
:)
I never objected to the previous generation, but one must salute progress I suppose.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
IMO comparing this and the HST is misleading. They may be both telescopes, they may both be on satellites and they may both be in orbit (or, eventually be) but they are very different devices.
The diffraction limit of a telescope is proportional to the size of it's aperture - the size of the 'end' where the light goes in. Basically, the more light you can capture the more you can see: generally, very faint things are hard to see. The resolving power of a telescope is believed to be limited by the diffraction limit. (I may of course be wrong, I'm not a qualified astronomer - I've only just began.)
Ground based telescopes are considerably larger and, if there wasn't kilometres of air between it and the near-vacuum of space, would have much greater resolving power than the HST.
At the time the HST was launched, there was a need to 'see' without the atmosphere being in the way. It has been useful. Modern ground based telescopes using things like adaptive optics can see things which the HST can't - don't underestimate the resolving power of a telescope on the ground compared to the HST. The HST is still very useful, even AO doesn't correct 'perfectly', but then the HST optics are not perfect either: those spikes that come off the center of the stars aren't supposed to be there. They're called diffraction spikes and I'm lead to believe they're caused by the telescopes structure.
The MOST will be a useful tool, but it's a tool for a purpose and as a general telescope I'm not confident that it would compare well to the HST or ground based telescopes.
At the rate ground based telescopes are improving, don't expect the additional cost of producing general telescopes like the HST to be met often - but I'd expect more devices with specific purposes (for instance, X-Ray astronomy which is quite scary - I've been told that a handful (5) of photons is a good detection!)
Ian Woods
There have been many space telescopes... depending on which wavelength range you are talking about. The author seems to be writing about visible wavelengths... even there, there was a telescope flown on the shuttle and there are plans for one on the space station. But Chandra, SIRTF (space infrared telescope facility), COBE, Hipparcos (sp?), and the CGO (Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory) were all space-based telescopes.
Of more interest to us astronomy-types is the latest go-ahead given by NASA to Kepler which is a space-based telescope that will look for Earth-like planets around other stars.
Joe from berkeley.
Slashdotters should get involved and use Open Source to help make it happen.
This may be somewhat off-topic.
But China is planning a "SETI" kinda project - and search for the LGM.
Can anyone tell me if the project would be opened for everyone to participate?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
So how about a large array telescope based on a million web cams and small telescopes linked together over the internet? Give it a shot and let me know.
Hmm. I remember watching a story on the local news about canadas `first science sat.` a few days ago. However, it was NOT a telescope. Was a sat. to investigate the ozone layer depletition over primarily northern canada.
The articals linked seem rather old? hmm. Not sure if someone has mentioned, but something here isn't right.
First off, the MOST (Microgravity and Oscillations of Stars) telescope is not "a more humble version of Hubble". The Hubble space telescope is a more-or-less general purpose intrument. By contrast, MOST has a narrow focus: to make photometric measurements of tiny stellar oscillations. This is something that Hubble may not actually be properly equipped to do, and even if it is, its science mission is much more generic, and no observer could get so much HST time for a such a narrow-focus subject as MOST's.
Secondly, there are not "millions of astronomers" in the world! (at least not professional astronomers...) There are a few thousands at most...