Canadians Plan to Build World's Biggest Telescope

Jerry Rivers writes "If all goes according to plan, Canada will be home to the world's largest telescope. The international project, which has the support of the U.S. Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, is still in the funding stages but when finished it will be roughly the size of a football field. Maybe with this they'll finally find the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."

Comments

Curiousity in the title!

[The Shrewd Dude]

Say, if Americans were going to build the world's biggest telescope, the title would not read "Americans Plan to Build World's Biggest Telescope", it would read "World's Biggest Telescope to be Built".

Why pick out the country that built it?

NFL or CFL

[uncoveror]

A telescope roughly the size of a footabll field? NFL or CFL? A CFL field is much bigger.

Ack your ack

[Zeebs]

From TFA "B.C. engineering company AMEC" and "AMEC started working on this four years ago and was joined by the National Research Council of Canada to draft concept designs"

Not to mention that it's going to be in Canada, and would be physically built by Canadians in that case.

Re:Ack your ack

[ShieldW0lf]

While the rest of your comment is spot on, it's not actually going to be placed in Canada. They're testing possible sites in Hawaii, Mexico and Chile.

It's a Canadian project with international support. The fact that the U.S. Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics among others are supporting this is because these Canadians have come up with something way beyond the state of the art and demonstrated to the satisfaction of the worlds most knowledgable that they will indeed be able to pull it off.

In my opinion, this makes the spiteful little jabs that are sprouting up in this discussion are very easy to dismiss.

Re:Ack your ack

[trotski]

This article is so full of mistakes it's not even funny! To clarify, www.amec.com is a British company, on the same scale as Bechtel or Fleur in the US.

The hertzberg institute is a canadian research institute, not american. The telescope is being build as a partnership between Hertzberg and Caltech. Read more here: http://www.tmt.org/

Hubble

[Cave_Monster]

With Hubble getting rather old, I wonder if this will be its successor. Though I can't help but think that a telescope wizzing around in space would be much more useful than one on the ground. The fact that you don't necessarily have to wait 24 hours to take another look at the same bit of the sky surely has to be an advantage.

Re:Hubble

[courtarro]

Hubble is aging, yes, and our technology has improved such that a replacement would be far superior, but the fact that it's orbiting outside the atmosphere makes a big difference in the sorts of things it can photograph. Turbulence is one thing, but the UV and IR that is blocked by our atmosphere can be picked up much more easily from space. Personally, I don't see why Hubble can't surpass every other land-based optical telescope on any level except exposure time (due to its smaller optics compared to many on Earth), since it's got every other advantage. I would imagine that any remaining shortcomings are due to its age. If we could bring it back to upgrade its technology to par with land-based scopes, or replace it with a new scope of the newest tech, it would have significant benefits over its land-based brothers.

(Not very) amusing misquote in article

[ClickOnThis]

I'm sure he was misquoted, but it really bugs me when I (often) see this confusion between astronomy and astrology in the media. At best, it shows the reporter's ignorance of the difference. At worst, it further confuses the public into thinking wrongly that astrology actually has a scientific basis. Sigh.

Don't worship the Hubble.

[EraserMouseMan]

The Hubble primary mirror is only 2.4 meters. This one is 30 meters. In addition the Hubble's mirror was flawed from it's very creation. http://www.uoguelph.ca/~ebaig/brian.html

The Hubble takes very cool images. But it is obsolete technology. Hubble is not the be-all and end-all of all telescopes for ever and ever. I find it interesting that people almost worship the instrument. In addition it is already past it's original operational life. Someday it will fail.

There are now techniques that correct for the earth's atmospheric distortion which enable earth-based telescopes to be much better than the Hubble. And also, the Hubble cost $1.5 billion!

So is this new telescope worth it? I think it is. Especially since it is being funded by people and companies in the private sector and not by government taxes.

Re:Wrong hemisphere

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but the Slashdot blurb is quite clear: "Canada will be home to the world's largest telescope".

Re:Not the world's largest telescope.

[zippthorne]

it can't claim credit as "world's largest" if it's not located on the world.

Re:Wow

[peter303]

You have to build in operating costs for 10-15 years. Operating costs include the maintence staff, data distribution and the salaries of dozens to hundreds of scientists who will use the beast. These can be 2-3 times the construction cost over that long period. This brings total costs into the gigabuck range these days.

Mods without a sense of humor?

[schon]

What is it with the rash of jokes being downmodded now? This is the fifth or sixth truly funny post this week that I've seen modded down.

Come on, i's *funny* (and yes, I'm Canadian.)