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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.'"
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 ?
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
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.
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.
> 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
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.