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Hubble Accuracy Surpassed By Earthbound Telescope
randuev writes "A high-speed adaptive optics system helped the Large Binocular Telescope (on Earth) to beat the accuracy of the Hubble Space Telescope's observations. 'A special sensor detects atmospheric distortions in real time and controls the mirror to adjust its position to compensate, effectively canceling out the blurring. The mirror can make adjustments every one-thousandth of a second, with accuracy to better than ten nanometers.' Now, that's what I call real-time. This nifty trick multiplied the Strehl ratio (optical quality) of the LBT by about 80 times. The new system was tested in May and June, so hopefully we'll soon see more space around us in higher resolution on Google Sky."
Now just imagine what they could do if they combined this kind of advanced optics with an orbital observatory that's...
Wait. Nevermind.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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This doesn't mean we'll see better Deep Field images does it?
I know they used super new adaptive optics but it wont increase the amount
of light collected.
I hope they keep up the pace of developments like these, I would like to see some good pictures of planets outside our solar system in my lifetime...
I plan on building a small telescope using a cardboard tube and was wondering how difficult it would be to incorporate this technology into a homemade device. Anybody know?
Another example of war tech turned to peaceful use. This was part of the Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative) program. In this case, it was required to support accurate laser shots at incoming warheads. Many folks committed to MAD-ness said that scientists couldn't do it. As Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, 'scientists will find a way.' Take that Luddite zero-summers!
It's great that atmospheric distortion can be largely eliminated, but just wait until we get some improved optics into space. Hubble has produced wonderful images, but the James Webb Space Telescope is going to be a phenomenal upgrade.
...that it was more than 20 years ahead of any Earth-bound telescope when it launched.
In case my sarcasm detector is giving a false positive, the answer is you don't need adaptive optics for a mirror diameter of 30 cm or less, because at those sizes you get more blurring from diffraction than from atmospheric effects.
I admit i clicked on that, despite suspecting it was spam.
Well... I couldn't figure out whether the guy is a genius artist or an entertaining retard.
Either way, there is something about it - it's a website that Eric Cartman could have set up, and that's no small thing.
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
hoop hgoop
An Earth bound telescope finally beat a space telescope built 20 years ago.
All Kidding aside, High fives to everyone involved. This is some cool tech.
There are several limitations to adaptive optics, which are by no means a cutting edge technology for large observatories any more. Just about every telescope being built or upgraded today are having adaptive optics fitted.
One major limitation is that the adaptive optics are only good for small fields of view since you're using a single guide star to calibrate the disturbances in the atmosphere you're correcting. So they are not good for imaging multiple objects or even large single objects (like a single galaxy). Another is that since you're not in orbit like Hubble you have to wait for the planet to rotate, so a deep field would take much longer anyway.
When we lose Hubble we lose some unique capability. Even successor telescopes that don't work in optical light will not fill that void. Adaptive optics will only be useful in some circumstances whereas Hubble would have been useful in the general case. Oversimplifications like this story don't belong on a techy site like slashdot.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Accuracy is too vague a term to use when describing a telescope.
The adaptive optics increases the resolution of the telescope by eliminating the refractive errors caused by atmospheric turbulence. And the basic resolution of the LBT is better because its 8.4m mirrors are over 3 times the diameter of the 2.4m Hubble mirror.
The ideal would be a larger mirror in space, such as the James Webb telescope is to be if it works.
[Disclaimer: I eat lunch with LBT engineers, so I know way too much about the gory details of getting 600 magnetic actuators to work together without breaking glass.]
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
http://torcache.com/torrent/DA4B118239E5BC4DF4ACF591D1077AAEC1C4D61B.torrent National Geographic documentary that came out recently about it.
There's always complexity behind these stories, and it might be interesting for everyone to understand why this development, although a great and useful accomplishment, is not equally useful for all types of astronomy:
Much of astronomy is being pushed by the need to image deeply in the infrared. For example, to discover the most distant objects in the universe, you need to use near- and mid-infrared wavelengths (because objects that are far away are receeding rapidly, hence redshifted). And for this, mostly what you want is raw photon count, not sharpness (although that would be a "nice-to-have" someday).
Unfortunately (for astronomy), the atmosphere absorbs heavily in the infrared wavelengths (aside from a few windows, which give us our passpands), and as a result, a 1 meter telescope in space still beats an 8 meter on the ground, in almost every respect (putting cost aside for a moment...).
At least for infrared work...
There are lots of comments about Hubbles deep field images, which are really impressive but Hubble is only a 2.4m telescope and the standard on the ground today is 8-10 m. The light gathering power is more than 10 times that of Hubble and what Hubble could do in one month, these telescopes can do less than a week. The James Webb telescope will be able to do lots of impressive stuff but the resolution and lots of the science has come down to earth. There are several ongoing +30m projects such as for example the ESO 42m downscaled version of the OWL. I doubt we will see a +30m space telescope anytime soon.
As has been pointed out, theres' lots of stuff only Hubble can do and lets hope it will do it for a long time to come but Hubble will never do spectroscopy on an extrasolar planet. That will be done from a ground based telescope.
Clouds.
I wonder if they used forth to control this telescope. Would do my heart good to know that forth is alive and well and still controlling telescopes.
Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he had my confidence on the voyage. Joshua Slocum
GHD Hair Straighteners Vibram five fingers review :I dont know if things have changed but when I last read anything about adaptive optics it involved sending
Meh. Wake me when they invent the smelloscope.
Or install a telescope on the moon.
And a webcam. How could would it be to have a webcam on the moon pointing at Earth. It would take the narcissism of internet technology to the global scale. Too bad it would probably just show us all masturbating.
But seriously i think such a webcam would generate great interest.
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