How About a Gigapixel Digital Camera?

vcullen writes "Ever wondered where digital cameras will end up? What about a 1 Gigapixel digital camera? It would certainly beat the latest array of new digital cameras - the biggest of which only has an 8.2MP sensor! The 1 Gig Digital Camera might not quite fit in your pocket but the thought of it does make one's mind spin a little. The European Space Agency is building this massive camera (actually it's made from 170 cameras) for its Gaia space telescope, due for launch in 2010. Why? They want to map the entire universe 'down to a resolution one million times fainter than the human eye can see.'"

Comments

Nitpicking

[KilobyteKnight]

It would certainly beat the latest array of new digital cameras - the biggest of which only has an 8.2MP sensor!

Not quite right

Pixels don't matter - CCD size does

[DoctorRad]

The best quality optics in the world won't get you past the diffraction limit, so the physical size of the CCD matters too. The diffraction limit imposes the condition that cramming ever more pixels into the same area eventually becomes fruitless: there's no more information to be had in that area. You want more information? Increase that area.

That said, I have no handle on how the cost/benefit curve looks assigning funds to improving either the optics or the CCD in different proportions.

Matt...