Who Needs NASA? Exoplanet Detected Using a DSLR

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 30, 2014 @06:36PM from the small-cheap-everywhere dept.

Iddo Genuth writes Until 20 years ago even the best telescopes in the world could not detect a planet outside our solar system. Now, with the aid of a basic DSLR, low cost lens and some DIY magic, you just might be able to "see" ET's home planet for yourself. Your DSLR can do much more than just take a few nice portraits or the occasional vacation photos – if you have some DIY experience (O.K. a bit more than just "some"), you might be able to repeat what David Schneider was recently been able to do — that is, building his own planet finder using only inexpensive photo gear, low cost electronics, the right kind of software and a lot of patience. Although Schneider was "only" able to rediscover an already known exsoplanet (some 63 light-years away from us), what he did — and more importantly how he did it — might allow planet hunting to become closer to SETI@home than NASA's 550,000 million dollar Kepler space telescope project.

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Re:Billions and billions: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-30 20:17 · Score: 1, Interesting

Depends. US and China uses period as decimal sign, South America, Europe and Russia uses comma.
Perhaps it's just your interpretation of the numbers that is incorrect.