Earth's Radio Telescopes Combining Forces

Slatterz writes "I own a basic 70mm telescope, which I'm sure Galileo would have given his right arm for in 1609. In fact, this year marks exactly 400 years since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the skies — discovering the moons of Jupiter and helping to prove that the universe doesn't revolve around us. As a mark of respect, the United Nations has declared 2009 the International Year of Astronomy. Official festivities kick off this week in Paris and, to help start the celebrations, 17 radio telescopes in Australia, Asia, Europe and the Americas will track three quasars using something called "real-time Very Long Baseline Interferometry" — basically creating hi-res images by combining their data to simulate a telescope as large as the Earth. Sounds cool."

Comments

Re:And to kickstart the celebrations

[CRCulver]

While growing up, my father imparted something of a passion for astronomy, and I remember being thrilled by a glance through his homebrew Dobsonian reflector. However, light pollution really takes any wonder out of gazing up at the heavens with a naked eye. I've been to some fairly remote places on Earth, such as central Kazakhstan and Western Sahara, but even there local authorities have put up enough lighting to seriously dim the skies. I can't imagine how glorious things must have been a century ago.

It's a pity few even realize what a problem light pollution is. If you want to really appreciate the stars, consider looking at something like Bob Mizon's Light Pollution: Responses and Remedies . But in the face of apathy from officials, there's no much hope for improvement.

Re:Stop calling the man by his first name

[buchner.johannes]

Interesting.
They say:

From: pinkfreud-ga on 30 Mar 2005 10:31 PST

It's quite common for historical figures to be mentioned by their
first names. Rembrandt, Napoleon, Dante, and Leonardo come to mind.

...

From: waukon-ga on 26 May 2005 14:30 PDT

There is a cutoff date (and I forget exactly when, but basically at
the start of the baroque period) where one starts calling European
historical figures by their last names. Michaelangelo Buonorotti is
referred to by his first name, but Michaelangelo Caravaggio is
referred to by his last.

Not exactly a planet-sized radio telescope

[Mal-2]

While the resolution of a large array can be similar to one gigantic dish, this does not mean it is as sensitive. No matter how spread the array, it is (at best) only as sensitive as the sum of its individual elements. What is nice though is that as some sites rotate out of the array, others can be brought online, which allows for continuous monitoring of a single patch of space. Even a giant array in the desert like the VLA is not capable of performing this feat since it is still just one point as far as the planet is concerned.

Mal-2