Fermilab Builds 500-Megapixel Camera

heyitsme writes "Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy research lab, is part of a collaboration on an experiment to measure the properties of dark energy. The Dark Energy Survey would measure the history of the expansion rate of the universe more precisely than ever before, using the largest camera ever built with Charge Coupled Devices (CCD). The 500 megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) would be placed on an existing 4-meter telescope located in north-central Chile at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The DECam together with the CTIO 4-meter telescope will allow for a survey of 15 percent of the sky to light levels faint enough to measure the colors of galaxies at redshift one."

Comments

I'm glad

[toddhunter]

That they were able to save money by using an existing telescope.
Because the compact flash cards for this thing cannot be cheap.

500 megapixel??

[fodi]

I dont EVER want to be photographed in that much detail !!

Finally!!!

[Eberlin]

Finally something that has higher system requirements than Longhorn!!!

I bet..

[platypibri]

Even at this level of digital imaging, it has a weak, useless flash, intolerable low light noise, and sucks batteries in no time. Actually, I'm really looking forward to seeing the images this thing captures

Nice, but...

[Bill_Royle]

Is there Linux support for it?

Re:but

[supergiovane]

I dont't know that, but I heard that it has quite good lenses and an amazing zoom. You really don't need to go to Japan with it: you can take detailed photos of Japan directly from home!