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Gas Clouds As Giant Telescopes

Posted by timothy on from the repurposing dept.

allrong writes "Astronomers have found a way to harness clouds of gas in space to make a natural 'telescope' more powerful than any manmade telescope currently in operation. Read the press release or take a look at the images and description of the process."

3 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. It�s a radiotelescope by gomoX · · Score: 5, Informative

    This idea is not like an optical telescope (kinda Hubble) that can take neat pictures.
    Its an effect that amplifies the radio emissions of a quasar or any other source of these which pass through the gas clouds so they can be more easily read here on earth.
    BTW, you could RTFA which is very short, I promise.

    --
    My english is sow-sow. Sowhat?
  2. Re:Practicality? by Hegestratos · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just skimmed through the abstract of the article to be published, and I think the post on the front page is a bit disorienting. They're not using a bubble of gas the way one uses a lens (or mirror) in a telescope. Fat chance of getting a blob of gas aligned in between the object and you eye, and if that does happen purely by chance, then that blob is likely to be shaped unregularly, making a very, very poor lens.

    The big idea is that you can deduce extra information from what you see when a blob of gas passes in front of the object you're observing. Basically, the gas fudges the image in much the same way as the Earth's atmosphere does (called seeing) but on a longer timescale. The lack of atmosphere, as you all know, is why the Hubble is such a good telescope. If you know how the object you're observing was creamed, then possibly you can reconstruct the original from what you've observed. Extra information has to come from somewhere, and that means you're going to be observing for a long time to get some statistics together.

    I know it works for solar observations, since I've written code that does it myself. I can't find a good before and after example right now, but it's pretty impressive. I guess this will work. Neat.

    Alfred

  3. Re:THIS IS NOT A NEW TECHNIQUE! by pVoid · · Score: 4, Informative
    That telescope you speak of is the Keck Telescope, it is already functional, and yes, it blows hubble out of the water.

    Except what you are talking about is a different phenomenon: these people are using the gas clouds to actually amplify the signals they receive, not to decrease image noise. They *are* extrapolating in a similar way that you describe, but it's not because the earth's view is shrouded by a haze surrounding it...

    There is a sublte nuance there... A similar thing in microscopy would be to actually induce the air currents you speak of, and through a software analysis of the resulting image, obtain images that were bigger/brighter/whatever than if it were taken in absolute vaccum.