1.4 Billion Pixel Camera To Watch For Asteroids

SpaceSlug writes "The world's largest digital camera is to be used to keep an eye out for asteroids heading towards Earth. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) has been built by researchers at MIT's Lincoln Lab. At its heart is a 1.4 billion pixel (or 1400 megapixel) camera that will scan the night sky looking for rogue near-Earth objects from atop Mount Haleakala in Maui Island, Hawaii. The system uses something called an orthogonal transfer CCD to remove atmospheric blur from images."

Comments

To fully fund the project year round

[deft]

You just need to point her down at the beaches of Hawaii a few times a year and capture some of the scenery.

can you say gigapixelboobs.com?

Re:To fully fund the project year round

[Falkkin]

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=5322

5.3 gigapixel image of Hanauma Bay in Hawaii.

Pending Doom

[tripdizzle]

So now we will be able to see asteroids that could slam into our planet and possibly end life, but then what? Hit it with a missile or go Armageddon style on it?

Re:Pending Doom

[evanbd]

For starters, it's worth worrying about asteroids that would merely destroy a city rather than end life as we know it. And, if you spot them early, there are a number of techniques that could deflect them. With plenty of time to work, small changes in velocity can cause large changes in position years in the future -- turning an impact into a near miss. This is especially true if there is a close approach to another body before the impact, as small changes in position at the approach turn into larger changes in velocity.

If you only need a tiny course correction, there are plenty of options. A gravitational tug, for example (put a spacecraft near the asteroid, use ion engines to maintain position, and let gravitational forces pull the asteroid toward the ship, and vice versa). That lets you use an ion engine to nudge the asteroid without solving the problems of landing on it or grabbing it. If you can get away with even less total impulse, you can simply paint a large portion of it white and let light pressure from the Sun do the work for you.

Things like large rocket engines and nuclear blasts are crude, blunt instruments; if you have warning, a more subtle approach is appropriate.

Re:Pending Doom

[east coast]

Hit it with a missile or go Armageddon style on it?

As long as it gets rid of Bruce Willis it's a win-win situation.

Blurred summary

[mcgrew]

The system uses something called an orthogonal transfer CCD to remove atmospheric blur from images.

Shoddy. "Something called?" Come on, guys, this is supposed to be "news for nerds". If you can't find it on wikipedia, use google.

orthogonal transfer CCD (OTCCD)

We have designed and built a new type of CCD that we call an orthogonal transfer CCD (OTCCD), which permits parallel clocking horizontally as well as vertically. The device has been used successfully to remove image motion caused by atmospheric turbulence at rates up to 100 Hz, and promises to be a better, cheaper way to carry out image motion correction for imaging than by using fast tip/tilt mirrors. We report on the device characteristics, and find that the large number of transfers needed to track image motion does not significantly degrade the image either because of charge transfer inefficiency or because of charge traps. For example, after 100 sec of tracking at 100 Hz approximately 3% of the charge would diffuse into a skirt around the point spread function. Four nights of data at the Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT (MDM) 2.4-m telescope also indicate that the atmosphere is surprisingly benign, in terms of both the speed and coherence angle of image motion. Image motion compensation improved image sharpness by about 0.5'' in quadrature with no degradation over a field of at least 3 arcminutes. (SECTION: Astronomical Instrumentation)

Re:Can it capture UFO license plate numbers?

[mcgrew]

UFOs by definition don't have visible license plates. If it had a license plate it wouldn't be unidentified, now would it?