Antarctic Telescope?

angkor pastes "'A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m diameter mirrors would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia.'"

Comments

How old is the hubble ?

[ThomasFlip]

The new telescope would be utilizing the technology of today as opposed to over 10 years ago. Now I think its safe to say that deep space observational technology doesn't grow at the pace of say microchips, but I don't think its much of a suprise that new terrestrial based technology can outperform hubble. I think the real question we should be asking is: antarctic telescope vs NEW orbital telescope. Also, why haven't scientists thought of going to the poles earlier ?

Hubble Telescope: Maximum Science for your Buck?

[Anonymous Coward]

While it can't be argued that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been invaluable to science, we must question if another one would provide the same kind of results. Right now, the Paranal Observatory in Chile is being completed and will become the largest telescope cluster on Earth, putting the HST to shame. That's right, an Earth-bound telescope will provide much better observation than Hubble. Another limitation of Hubble is that it only provides images in the visible range, the least useful range for studying space bodies yet the one which produces the prettiest pictures.

The clever reader by now has already figured out that HST was a costly publicity stunt, providing limited scientific return that's "invaluable", but could be obtained in cheaper ways. I object to the space program's spending spree. I support that the space program should be stopped in favour of actual science being done. I wonder, how far could've gone if the space program's funds were applied more responsibly? Perhaps we could have intelligent robots already, doing our jobs so that we could better enjoy life. What do you rather have? Pretty pictures of faraway galaxies or a better life down here on Earth?

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Does this explain the Userfriendly theme this last week?

btw. Their names are Sarah and Henry.

Been done before...

[YorgleLlama]

I was working on the software side of the Spirex-Abu telescope at CARA... which no longer exists, as far as I know. (Spirex: South Pole InfraRed EXplorer, Abu was just the name of the IR CCD device.) http://pipe.cis.rit.edu

It was meant for doing Infrared astronomy, using an experimental IR sensor. (some pics on that link)

The thought was that due to the fact that it's so dry an cold down there, you could do IR astronomy similarly to an IR telescope in space. Results were pretty good too.

All observations were done over the Antarctic Winter, while the airport was colosed, since the sky was colder and there was less water vapor in the sky... and as you know, the less water vapor, the better the IR imaging capability, and the colder, the less background noise.

This function will be taken up by the new SOFIA platform, which we're also working on as well right now. I believe there have been /. articles about it, but in case you forgot, it's a 2.5m telescope in the back of a modified 747... also meant for IR astronomy.(at 40,000 feet up, you're above most of the water vapor in the air) SOFIA can be reconfigured after each landing.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[theguyfromsaturn]

Yeah, but in orbit you only have to worry about radiated heat loss. You probably lose wayyyyy more heat by condution. That's why you drop things into water to cool them faster even than in air. The same goes for air versus vacuum. At least we won't depend on a shuttle to service it... though we'll need brave doggies to pull the sleighs all the way there.

Re:Some limitations:

[Anonymous Coward]

There are tradeoffs.

Hubble is unable to look at most patches of sky for a full day because it orbits near the earth, whereas this telescope can sit and look at most anything in the southern sky for months at a time.

Hubble is also unable to look at that part of the sky which is near the sun. (Obviously this varies with the season).

Most of the observing done with Hubble is not really time critical... having two identical Hubbles that could only operate during six months of the year would be almost as good as having the actual Hubble which operates year round. Since this telescope is so much less expensive than Hubble, you could easily build two of it if its observing time is really that important.

Hubble is more versatile than this Antarcic telescope would be, but I'd say it's due more to atmospheric absorption. There are differences in observing constraints, but it's just not a huge deal.

Re:Some limitations:

[Threni]

> requirement to avoid ... the South Atlantic Anomaly

Thanks for that - I just looked it up and learned something. I especially liked:

> astronauts are also affected by this region which is said to be the cause of
> peculiar 'shooting stars' seen in the visual field of astronauts.

from http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q525.html

Re:Hubble Telescope: Maximum Science for your Buck

[julesh]

Another limitation of Hubble is that it only provides images in the visible range

Err... bollocks. Hubble includes at least IR and UV instruments, and I believe further instruments designed to operate at a wide variety of wavelengths.

Re:Outperform?

[Explo]

Yep, while Hubble definitely has limits where it can point at given time (not too close to the Sun etc), this thing would see only half of the sky at all.

Also, for half of the year, when the sun does not set at the pole area, this thing would be able to do very little...

That being said, if someone wishes to build it, I don't think it as useless idea; I just don't see it as a direct 1:1 replacement for a space-based telescope either.

Maybe in theory

[jeffkjo1]

Perhaps in theory a big telescope in Antartica is a good idea, but I've read some stories over the years that they get a fair amount of snow yearly that would maybe interfere with an exposed, outdoor telescope.

Faster Update Cycles in Antarctica

[billstewart]

It's not just that newer terrestrial technology can beat older orbital technology. It's that any time you update terrestrial technology, you can go update the thing, whereas the Hubble and its successors only get a major refresh every decade or so. So maybe a new Hubble replacement could be better than a new Antarctic telescope, but five years from now, the ground-based system will have 10 times as much computer horsepower just from normal Moore's law effects, plus it'll be able to take advantage of new optical developments, and if you need to replace the Antarctic scope, you can park the new one next door to the old one, taking advantage of the infrastructure you've got instead of buying all new launch vehicles. Alternatively, you can park the new one up in the Arctic, getting a different view of the sky.

So build another in the Arctic

[billstewart]

This one's in Antarctica because Australians have the silly idea that it's closer to them. Building in the Arctic gets you the other half of the year.

And the cost of building two of these things is much less than twice the cost of building a single one, because a large fraction of the cost is developing all the tools and technology to build it, and they can crank out two or three more for not much extra cost. (Obviously building the base and staffing it are duplicated costs.) By contrast, building all the launching systems for the Hubble is so expensive that you're not going to build a couple of clones and launch them, you're going to wait another decade and develop most of the system from scratch using the technology of the time again.

Re:Press Release... funding

[toxic666]

Here is one that is near and dear to me: the Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter.

Before the GFCI, the primary electrical circuit protector was the circuit breaker. Does some nice things, but it is NOT good at detecting when current is leaking to ground, say, through your finger, arm chest, leg and foot to a puddle of water in the bathroom. Two companies realized the potentially beneficial (and hence lucrative) potential for such a device and independently developed it. It is known as the GFCI -- and not GFI -- because one company beat the other to market.

Oh, hey, what about that computer you typed your comment on? Did any corporate-funded research went into that?