Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Swannie writes: "There's a story in today's Chicago Tribune about a joint project that Fermi Lab is taking on with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. The goal is to produce a 3D map of the universe using a really big digital camera, and a really creative way to add "depth" to the image. The article has some decent technical details for a newspaper, including a pretty picture." Update: 03/12 15:44 GMT by M : The blurb is in error. A particular scientist from Rensselaer is mentioned in the article, but Rensselaer isn't part of the project as an institution.

Comments

Asking for funding...

[flipflapflopflup]

[Scientists] "Right, we'd like some funding to build a map of the universe"

[Investor] "Sounds good. How are you going to go about it?"

"Well, we are going to get a really big camera..."

"click......"

"hard to say why people should study astronomy"

[da5idnetlimit.com]

"It's hard to say why people should study astronomy," said Gunn. "But in the scheme of human intellect, it is important to know where we came from and what's likely to be in store for us."

Oh, you mean this is a $85 million Horoscope Machine....

What fascinates me...

[petis]

.. is the creative process behind projects of this magnitude. Where do people get these ideas? Is the scenario below how it happened?

- Hey, I just got this great idea!
- Uhu, what's that?
- Let's make a 3D map of the entire universe!
- Sounds cool, let's get some funding!

Or is it more like:
- Hmmm, this problem would be easily solved if we had a 3D map of the universe..
- Sounds cool, let's get some funding for that project!

Or the third alternative:
- Hmmm, we need some funding!
- Sounds cool, let's make a 3D map of the entire universe!
- Great, that will keep us running for a couple of years!

:)

Now in stock: 0.1Gpixel Web Cam

[ArcSecond]

Each detector is rated at 4 megapixels, giving the 30-CCD array a whopping 120-megapixels (120 million pixels) sensitivity. The higher the number of pixels, the greater the resolution.

Great!! Where can I get one? Does it have USB 2.0 or FireWire? And how many hi-res shots can I fit in memory? Does it take SmartMedia or CompactFlash?

I just hope that I can find a big enough LCD to view these pix at 100%...

Can this be used for torture?

[clmensch]

I don't remember the name of it, but it seems that this could be used for a torture chamber described in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series! The gist of it was that the victim entered a chamber where the entire Universe was projected all around him in stunning detail...and the sheer unthinkable magnitude of it all made the victim feel so minor and insignificant that it killed them.

I remember reading it and thinking that's not only frickin' hilarious, but it's COOL!