Slashdot Mirror
New Wide-Angle Telescope to Capture Night Sky
NewScientist is reporting that a new telescope located in Chile is aiming to capture images of the entire night sky every three nights. From the article: "The telescope will use a digital camera with 3 billion pixels to image the entire sky across three nights, producing an expected 30 terabytes of data per night. This will allow astronomers to detect objects that quickly change their position, such as near-Earth asteroids, or their brightness, such as supernovae."
Finally equipment good enought to catch the UFO's in action!!!
I'd love to see the facility set up to store the output, to say nothing of processing it. I wonder how they'll archive it?
You are not the customer.
> This will allow astronomers to detect objects that quickly change their position, such as near-Earth asteroids, or their brightness, such as supernovae.
And alien flying saucers...
That is, unless NASA gets to them first!
You should submit it to NASA!
Good thing my secret space station is on a 3-day orbit around the Earth. It'll stay undetected because it'll appear at the same spot every sky sweep.
They'll put up a few bittorrent files and name them "Jenna Jameson porn XXX" and such.
Great, So they've got a 3 Gigapixel camera. Always trying to one-up me, I see.
-gjr
Finally, an alternative to Pan and Scan telescopes.
I wonder how much processing power will be needed to process such a huge amount of data inorder to extract something meaningful out of this data.
Does Chile have some state of art suprcomputers to achieve this or are they going to send the data to some other country for analysis.
And if they decide to transfer data to some other country how are they going to achieve that.. is data transfer on Internet feasible for 30 TB per night of data ?
Photoshop CS3 - Astronomy Editition
Ok, so how do i know if the submitter is native english speaker or not? According to wikipedia, billion - english speakers think that billion is 10^9, while non-english speakers think that it's 10^12. It is troubling me, because I wanted to quickly calculate what's the size of the pixel matrix, but I can't because of that ambiguity :(
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I understand this 8.4m telescope will be designed to view a wider field of view than any other 8m class telescopes (we have like five of them now). But, do we really need another large telescope that costs a few hundred millions? Or is this just another telescope engineer's way for securing a future funding resource?
For 300 Mil, we could probably build ten kick-ass instruments to utilize the existing 6m to 8m telescopes more efficiently. That's where the technology is advancing faster, too. After all, what good a telescope does when there is no good instrument to observe with?
The nation's budget is tight right now. I think we need to rethink our long term plan for the astronomical community. I personally do not feel that another 8m class telescope is what the community needs.
The apostrophic status is made clear from context, e.g.
The UFO's had little green men inside
The UFO's crew were little green men (singular UFO)
The crews of the UFO's were little green men (plural UFO's)
</punctuationwarmfuzzyliberal>
Pining for the fjords
$270 mil seems awfully steep. I didn't think many other countries had that kind of money to throw around towards things that had little purpose other then fulfilling curiosity other then the US.....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
This is old, old news. Many of these programs are run by has-beens who resist change and are little more than entrenched bureaucracy.
It would be better to have multiple, interlinked reflector and/or schmidt-cassegrain telescopes ( these are catadioptric 'scopes which use both lenses and mirrors ) all digitally searching the sky together. We can now link such devices wirelessly over several kilometers or even statewide. If you use an asynchronous comm channel to query the telescopes' search telemetry and they reside on an intranet they can all track right ascension+declination at once to look for deep-sky objects or to track Mars. This way, you can aggregate data and pool this information as co-located segments when doing visual/radio sweeps.
The best thing about this proposal is it leaves the door open for volunteers to step in and contribute something.
Yes but will the aliens be welcome?
Hmm? The New Yorker doesn't use apostrophes when pluralizing abbreviations. See here, for example: "DVDs," not "DVD's."
:-P
Anyway, why are you taking style hints from a source that seems to think it unobjectionable to splatter its pages with uncontrolled diereses?
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
I'd be willing to help process the data if they need a significant supercomputer to make the comparisons to previous nights. Or does comparing 3 Gigapixel images not really put a strain on their computers?
Oh You POS
And besides, I'm an American. :)
You are not the customer.
It is impossible to see the ENTIRE night sky from Chile. You would have to have an observatory in the northern hemisphere (in the right location) in conjunction with one in Chile to photograph the ENTIRE night sky.
Mods, please don't mod this up. Its bullshit. True that Forth was in *1976* was made the official language of the IAU, but no astronomer uses Forth these days, and there's no hint anywhere that the guys who run this telescope are going to be using it either. These days Astronomers are more likely to use Python, Perl, C, C++, Java and other modern languages to write their data analysis tools in.
Mods, please don't mod this up. Its bullshit. True that Forth was in *1976* was made the official language of the IAU, but no astronomer uses Forth these days, and there's no hint anywhere that the guys who run this telescope are going to be using it either.
And besides, you'd think they'd be up to Fifth or Sixth by now.
Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of 1000 3-Megapixel cameras taking pictures of the sky through telescopes, and do that every 3 nights. That's how impressive this project is going to be.
Oh You POS
scuttlebutt says "every three nights" but the summary says "across three nights".
so which is it? huh? once every three nights or each night for three nights? HUH????? ANSWER ME DAMMIT. SCUTTLEBUTT YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU CONFUSED ME!
From the original article "If it receives the required funding, the telescope is expected to begin operating in 2012." So rather than "New telescope to do this and that" it more like "plans for new telescope". The key is that the project is not confirmed. On other news, Seagate just signed a big new contract... :P
, , , , , karma elon
...the telescope is expected to begin operating in 2012.
And in 2012, we will probably have holographic storage..or a micro size. So storage won't relly be a problem.
Pat
Actually, most astronomers use FORTRAN there days. Packages like AIPS and MIRIAD are completely written in them.
:-)
The newer stuff like AIPS++ uses C++.
I'm working on one of these next-generation telescopes, it LOFAR, we hope to have it operational in 2008. All software is written in C++, except for some user interfaces in Java.
The telescope in the topic is only a dream at this point, they have nowhere near the funding to start yet. LOFAR on the other hand is already being build. Our software correlator is already running on our IBM BlueGene, making it the 9th fastest computer in the world. Our 144 GBit/s links to the sub-stations are operational, and the first full substation (of 77) will be operational next month.
These guys are talking 30 TByte/day, we're talking a raw datarate of 1.5 Petabyte/day at the end of 2008. This is going to be the largest radio-telescope in the world, at 300km (200 mi.), at least until SKA gets build (if it gets build)
It's a realy cool project
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
"no astronomer uses forth these days"?? http://forth.gsfc.nasa.gov/
I'm not sure I'd call the study of the origin and structure of the entire universe "narrow", but be that as it may... The data set that will come out of this instrument (if it's ever built) will be on an entirely different scale than anything astronomers have had to deal with. There are lots of things that can be done with such an instrument - lensing surveys, redshift surveys, variable stars, supernova searches... Pretty much anything requiring a wide search where you don't know the exact locations of the interesting bits.
The Hubble (for example) will always be better if you want to look at a specific spot very closely, but a high resolution survey of the entire Southern sky every few nights is hardly of limited interest! My only concern is that it's too much - a few days of data could keep people busy for a very long time!
Perhaps you should read what kind of software is there on that page. That stuff is mainly code for space hardware, which is not the realm of an astronomer, its for engineers.
I would not argue if you wrote that the telescope control software was written using Forth, which is somewhat likely, but what you said is that Forth is used for the data analysis software, and I call bullshit on that until you show me evidence otherwise.
Note: I work on a NASA project so I know something of what I'm talking about here, so please don't quote GSFC web pages at me unless you've actually worked there like I have.
Unless I'm mistaken the Panstarrs project is doing the same thing on the summit of Mauna kea in hawaii. I guess maybe they can see things in the southern hemisphere that arn't visible in Hawaii but it sure seems like a copy cat operation.
"Primary/secondary/tertiary" suggests that there's ONE optical path; but does that make sense?
The "If it receives the required funding, the telescope is expected to begin operating in 2012."-part isn't very reassuring.
"Its three large mirrors are required so we don't get weird effects on the edges of the field,"
Well, sir, if you've got equipment to figure 11 to 27 foot mirrors and you're worrying about edge effects then that equipment must be kind of sh*tty...no? Should you even be attempting this project?
"Yah - you betcha: we're gonna have one HELL of a 'scope one of these days; if we can pay for it..."
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
This sounds like somebody fishing for a little goverment money. Like watching for 'near earth' satilites that can be seen if you have wide angle coverage, and good depth.
I was looking to see if anyone talked about LOFAR. And lo and behold, I found one.
30TB is a baby game compared to the LOFAR guys (ok, it's a rather "apple and orange" comparison, I must admit).
Now we only have to wait for GoogleSky to view these images!
These days Astronomers are more likely to use Python, Perl, C, C++, Java and other modern languages to write their data analysis tools in.
;)
Well, for the astronomers I support, I see use of Fortran (usually 77) more than anything. Maybe a little C or Perl, but none of the other stuff (excepting Python for stuff like Pyraf...). Unless you want to count iraf and/or IDL scripts as a programming language.
This is truly not innovative at all and just copying someone else's idea. PAN-STARRS will accomplish the same thing, already has funding, and is entering the prototype phase. Sure, 1.4 Gigapixels is not as much as 3, but it will be online sooner, accomplish the same goals on a smaller telescope, and will take a week to survey the whole sky instead of three days. So this new telescope is no big deal, especially since it will only about half of the sky visible to PAN-STARRS since this new thingy will be in the very southern hemisphere, rather than Hawaii.
While the stars in the backround appear in different places from night to night, due to the movement of the Earth around the Sun? Only if you are lucky and your secret space station is small enough they will blame a defective pixel...
I'm imaging the night sky with my 6 million pixel digital camera and my 100mm refractor. It's just goinng to take me a bit longer than them...
along side the SETI program.....
ok, ok , its a waste of freaking money if ya ask me!
There's an anecdote about how someone asked Michael Faraday what use was electricity. The answer was "what use is a newborn child?". Ask anyone about the uses of electricity today.
Among other things, this telescope will help to find an answer for one of the most important questions in physics today: how to unify the theories of quantum physics and relativity. This is one of the studies that can be helped by better knowledge of the mass distribution in the Universe.
At a total cost that's about a quarter of the military expenses of the USA in *one day*, this is a true bargain.
You're absolutely correct. I meant to mention Fortran and IDL in my original post. Although Fortran would have killed my "modern languages" argument! :)
I should point out also the extensive use of Python at sites like the Space Telescope Science Institute where they developed pyfits and numarray extensions for python, as well as PyRAF that you mentioned. Python is also used extensively in the data analysis pipeline for the project I work on (astrophysics based).
Pssh... there is development in progress on a 30m telescope:
http://www.tmt.org/
the paparazzi will be using it to view J-Lo's ass!
Libertas in infinitum
and step back a few paces if they can't get it all in?
If the actual period is 2.9918 days.
wait just a second. 4 degrees a night times 3 nights = 12 degrees total sky. the night sky is only 12 degrees big? when the hell did this happen?
[yes, I live in Chile] ... when it comes to astronomy (hell, science in general), our local media (TV and newspapers) does pretty slim coverage. I end up reading about these developments in foreign news sites (slashdot, BBC, space.com, etc.) 3-6 days before than appearing here, if at all. :-(
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
"... oh wait, those are just dead pixels. Sorry; Our bad."
http://outcampaign.org/
The LSST project would be keeping 30TB/day worth of image data; at a talk I heard a month ago they were discussing a storage array of up to 150PB to hold the data. While the raw data rate for LOFAR may be higher, I doubt you'll be storing all that data on the ~500TB arrays I've heard mentioned for the project.
With such a large data set - it seems to me that at least some basic analysis is well suited for a distributed BOINC project like SETI@Home.
"The New Yorker doesn't use apostrophes when pluralizing abbreviations."
Don'tcha mean pluralising abbreviations?
I can write "your an idiot" and while people would get my meaning (and retaliate with all sorts of comments about the irony of mine), it's still wrong. Apostrophes just tend to be less obvious, and occasionally (wrongly) inserted for style (apostrophe's seems to "read" better than apostrophes (this seems to happen in many cases where the word to be pluralized ends in a vowel), but it wouldn't be correct for the situation).
Now if I did fuck this up entirely, it's 4:30am, so I've got an excuse. While I'm not a grammar nazi per se, it being wrong just bugs me and people trying to claim their wrongness is in fact right is just that much worse. I can usually avoid correcting people on the former, but gah.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I would think that 60 degrees is wide angle. But 4 degrees is by all accounts very telephoto. As you said, that's like a 400mm lens on a standard digital Canon or Nikon SLR (600mm on a 35mm SLR). Have you ever used a 400mm lens? That's the lens you use for shooting the other end of a sports field. It's only "wide" compared to your standard telescope.
It should have a sensor diameter of about 600mm. That's over 20 times the diagonal size of the D200 sensor, so that 4 degree angle of view is going to require a 8400mm focal length lens. Assuming an 8400mm diameter aperture, that's a 8400/8400 or f/1.0 lens. Of course having a hole for a 5.2m tertiary mirror will lose 40% of the light, so it's more like an f/1.2 lens.
In other words, using this telescope is like strapping a 400mm f/1.0 lens to your Nikon D200, only with 1/300 the resolution.
It's not unusual to have a 6-18m focal length for a large telescope, but most collecting instruments are a single CCD, not an array of 700-1000 chips like this one. It's really easy to get a nice sharp image on a single chip in the center of your field of view. It's really, really, really hard to get a sharp image on the edge of your 700 chip array! This requires either having a smaller aperture or using a 3-mirror system.
dom
Almost any misspelling, poor punctuation or lack of grammar can be understood thanks to context (thankfully, or most of the web would be completely unreadable, whatever the language). It doesn't make it right.
You might want to read something like "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" for an accessible book if those little wiggly signs have you confused.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
This is according to this discussion at Google Answers
"MP3's" refers to a possession of the MP3 or "MP3 is", and "MP3s" refers to plural MP3 files
Does the english language actually dictate how to correctly pluralise acronyms (or in the case of mp3, whatever you'd call it), especially those that end in a number?
As for UFO - surely the plural (ie, Unidentified Flying Objects - correctly with no apostrophe) actually has the same acronym; UFO.
I don't know if there is or can be a 100% correct when we're talking about language/communication shortcuts, and while you can apply standard practices applied when using real words to these arbitrary shortcuts, surely the use of shortcuts is already a deviation from the core language, so can one really comment on how it "should" be done?
Just some thoughts, my opinion is not really set yet, opposing ideas welcome (as long as intelligent or educated).
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
...telescope photos YOU!
Libertas in infinitum
But he's an honor student and he's got that oh so clever C.R.A.P. acronym in his sig so he must be right!
"Yo' momma's so fat she has an uncompressed Chile telescope picture on her T-shirt!"
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
it will take three days to photograph the entire night sky.
Then really we need 3 of them.
Sorry, a little conspiracy theory/question.
Right, so we are able to see stuff a gazillion miles away, but still can't see lunar buggies, flags or anything else "left" on our own moon?
"Oh no, they'll all be covered up by moon-dust now." Let me guess, the moon's surface will now look exactly the same as it did before we "visited" it? How convenient.
Actually, it's not an abbreviation but an acronym.
My other first post is car post.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The 750GB drives are still a bit pricey - 500GB drives are about $250, so that's about $500/TB. Of course, you can't just pile up 60 of the things on a shelf in a rack - you need some kind of computers to drive them, and you can probably handle about 4 drives on a $200 motherboard (depending on whether SATA's available), so it's maybe an extra 10%-20% for the computers and power supplies.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks