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DARPA's New Hi-Tech Telescope

Posted by samzenpus on from the shiny-new-toys dept.

coondoggie writes "You can bet that if there are little red aliens running around on Mars, or spaceships patrolling other planets in our solar system for that matter, a recently powered-up telescope built by researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency might just be able to see them. The Air Force, which operates the DARPA-developed Space Surveillance Telescope says the telescope's design, featuring unique image-capturing technology known as a curved charge coupled device system, as well as very wide field-of-view, large-aperture optics, doesn't require the long optics train of a more traditional telescopes."

11 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder what the Air Force needs to track... by PmanAce · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will this be exclusive to Men in Black or will scientists be able to use this wonder as well?

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    Tired of my customary (Score:1)
    1. Re:I wonder what the Air Force needs to track... by deathcow · · Score: 4, Informative

      Air Force has huge departments dedicated to space.
      http://www.afspc.af.mil/units/index.asp

      They manage GPS satellites as well as scan the skies and catalog 10's of thousands of pieces of space debris.

  2. acronym fail? by jollyreaper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Curved Charged Coupled Device? Wouldn't that be CCCD?

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
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    1. Re:acronym fail? by FSWKU · · Score: 4, Funny

      It was originally going to be "Curved Charged Coupled Photoreceptor"...but then someone realized that might send the wrong message...

      --
      "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
  3. Joking? by wcrowe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can bet that if there are little red aliens running around on Mars...

    You're joking, right? That telescope is going to be pointed at little humans of all colors running around on Earth.

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    Proverbs 21:19
    1. Re:Joking? by piripiri · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can bet that if there are little red aliens running around on Mars...

      You're joking, right? That telescope is going to be pointed at little humans of all colors running around on Earth.

      You're joking, right? You know it's a telescope and not a satellite.

    2. Re:Joking? by Raenex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know it's a telescope and not a satellite.

      Those two aren't mutually exclusive.

    3. Re:Joking? by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's "tossed around" because of things like the average American "black" having 1/3 of their genes coming from European ancestors. Do they have a "race"? What about Obama? Does he have a "race"? If you posit that he's 50% "black" and 50% "white", then what of his children? They have a mother with some undetermined amount of European and African ancestry. How many generations do you try to keep track of? How many do you go back with? Do you have some kind of a genetic or physical test that can determine his "race" with any kind of scientific rigor?

      Even that chart you linked has all sorts of little red marks in the supposed purple "race". So yes, you can say things like "people with an ancestor from x region are more likely to have y trait". But that is worlds different from being able to toss people into categories. All it takes is for one of those ancestors with y trait to walk over to another part of the world and mate to throw off your classification system... that's not of very much use.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  4. article on curved focal surfaces by trb · · Score: 4, Informative
    Here's an interesting 2003 article on curved focal surfaces, including CCDs.

    http://www.ptbmagazine.com/content/040103_ora.html

  5. GEODSS replacement? by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds like a replacement for GEODSS.

    GEODSS, from 1980, was the first fully computerized telescope system. It basically looks at the sky, section by section, subtracts out all known objects, and reports the rest. So it finds new satellites, space junk, and even dark objects that occult stars. Three GEODSS sites are still running; a fourth is loaned out to Lincoln Labs to find and track near-Earth asteroids. (Somewhat to the annoyance of astronomers who had been discovering comets and asteroids manually, the automated Lincoln Labs GEODSS discovered them by the thousands.) Each site has at least two identical telescopes, and some have a wide-angle Schmidt.

    One of the less-often mentioned features of GEODSS is that it can illuminate a target. One telescope can be used to aim a laser at an object in low orbit, to get a clear picture of darker objects.

  6. Re:Wide FoV = low magnification by kyle5t · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is not your typical astrograph. I was able to find out, I think, that the CCDs have a pixel size of 15um, which is a normal figure. But this is at f/1 (!), so that is about 0.9 arcsec/pixel. Not too shabby. Not enough to spot the little green men on Mars, though.